


A Bond in the Darkness

by Arkblazer



Category: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun | A Certain Scientific Railgun, Toaru Majutsu no Index | A Certain Magical Index
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:59:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkblazer/pseuds/Arkblazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the secret facility known as Mayday Project of Darkness; two children will form an unlikely friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to Mayday

We humans crave for bonds with one another, for it is with these that we define ourselves; they are like a mirror in which we can see our very hearts. However, throughout our lives, these bonds are ever changing. We are either getting closer or drifting away, and no matter how strong these bonds may seem, sometimes they can break apart.

Take my parents for instance, at first they were always there for me, but when odd incidents began to happen, they began to drift away.

These incidents would vary: things that I touched would tend to disappear and then reappear somewhere else, or if I thought of a certain place I would instantly appear there.

Then one day, I held daddy's hand and he suddenly vanished, reappearing two meters in the air, before crashing head first into the concrete floor.

Needless to say, I was sent to Academy City so I could learn to control these powers. At first, my parents would call me once a month, but after a short while, their calls became less and less frequent. Until eventually they stopped altogether, never to hear from them again.

I couldn't blame them really after what I had done.

In any case, that's how I became a Child Error. Fortunately, since teleporters like me were few and far between, it was decided by the powers that be, that I was to be sent to a very special school. A school called the “ _Dark May.”_

Before I even got near the school, I began having suspicions that there was something fishy about the whole thing.

For starters, there was the bus that was taking me there. Unlike the automated buses of Academy City, this one was being driven by some old fart.

But even stranger was the fact that the whole bus was empty except for the two of us. This wouldn't have been that much of a bother if it wasn't for the fact that the driver would ignore me whenever I tried to talk to him.

Another thing that I found weird was that after some time in the bus I realized we were nowhere near the school district I knew.

Looking outside the window I saw that the streets and buildings seemed much dirtier and in worse condition than anywhere I had been.

The bus was completely silent except for the sound of air-conditioning blowing and the slight hum of the electric engine.

Worried as to where the driver was taking me I asked,

"Hey mister, are we there-"

"We are here," the driver interrupted coldly. His voice having a hint of anger since, for a while now, I had been asking him the same question over and over again.  
A few moments later, the bus turned a corner, and, that's when the school came into sight, which only helped gain more suspicion of where this bus driver was taking me.

Was it really a school? Back then I remembered thinking that it looked more like a prison or a fort. The whole "school" was surrounded by walls, in each corner a watchtower overlooking the perimeter.

Just like everything nearby, the whole place looked old and dirty. The wall's paint was worn and covered in graffiti.

There was a man and a woman waiting for me as I got out of the bus.

"You must be Shirai Kuroko, correct?" the woman asked as she verified the writing pad that likely had my file on it.

I nodded hesitantly; both of them seemed more like guards than teachers.

"This way kid," the man said as he waved his finger in a 'come here' gesture. The pair then just started walking back, not caring to look if I was even following them or not.

Annoyed at their indifference I grabbed my suitcase and followed them.

Although the exterior of school wasn't much to look at, the interior was another story altogether. While the place wasn't spotlessly clean or anything; at least it wasn't the garbage dump that I was expecting.

The entrance itself was just a large lobby with numerous state of the art cameras and large, metallic gates that would slide to the side when opened. It was almost as if their only purpose was to keep people from getting in or out without being noticed.

After passing through a number of these doors I got to what was known as the processing area. This was a large squared room filled with lockers and several changing booths on the right corner. It was there that the man took the suitcase from me and left.

"Hey what are you doing? That's mine!" I protested, trying to stop him from taking what little remained of my previous life.

"Don't worry; he'll take care of things," the woman tried to calm me as she dragged me away towards the cubicles.

"Just get inside and change into your new uniform, okay?" she demanded, opening one of the lockers and passing me the uniform.

The _uniform_ if you could call it that; was just a white shirt with matching pants. More than what a student in a school would be dressed in, these reminded me of what a patient would wear in a hospital, or even worse, test subjects…

As the dreary feeling that I'd been having continued to intensify, I thought of getting away using my teleportation. But I quickly dismissed that idea since I was always told that it was too risky,  
that I could end up hurting myself if I didn't know how to control my power perfectly.

And even if I did escape then what would have been the point? I had come here so that a monster like me could control its powers, so that one day my parents would forgive me and I could see them again.  

In the end I just did what I was told and changed into my new _uniform._

Afterward, when we got into an elevator, the woman said that we were going to meet with the director of the school; that made me wonder just what kind of director could this place have? As I entered his office, it turned out to be even worse than I had imagined.

The director's office was a dump; while the endless stack of papers was a bit of a shock, compared to all the beer bottles and ashtrays, it was nothing.

As for the director, he was a tall, blond man wearing a scientist's coat.

"Hey, it's not my fault that she was an incompetent cunt!" He was standing up, talking on his cell phone. He was at the back of his office facing the window. And while I hadn't even seen his face, I already knew I would despise him.

Director, the new stu-" The woman tried to say before being interrupted by a thrown beer bottle.  
And while his aim was off-mark, hitting the wall several inches to her left, it was perfectly clear that he wasn't to be interrupted.

“Hey don't you fucking dare threaten me you asshole; If I go down, I'll take you down with me!"  
The two of us just kept our mouths shut as the whole room was filled with a wide plethora of vulgar words; many of which I never even heard or knew existed.

"THEN KEEP THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS OFF MY FUCKING BACK!" The man shouted at the top of his lungs, before throwing the cell phone angrily against the wall.

For a few moments, the room remained in silence as the director began to take a swig of alcohol. Meanwhile, the woman tried to gain enough courage to speak up.

"Sir…"

"WHAT!" the director shouted back as he turned his face towards us, finally getting a good look at his face. While the maniacal look on his eyes wasn't so unexpected, the fact that half his face was covered in tattoos was odd. “What kind of school would have a director like this!?” I thought.

"The teleporter is here." said the woman quickly, picking her words carefully to avoid his ire.

"Oh that's right!" said the director as he approached me, his tone changing from one of anger to that of cheerful giddiness.

"You must be the new Kuro-chan. I'm the director of the school, Kihara Amata." he said with a smirk on his face, patting my head in a rough manner.

“You are such a life saver!” He continued as I, in return, glared back at him with an annoyed look; I didn't like it when people called me Kuro, It sounded too bleak for my tastes.

“You don’t know for how long we’ve been looking for a teleporter; and since that _other_ Kuro-chan made such a mess of things a few days back…” I didn’t know what he meant by ‘other Kuro- chan,’ but for some reason my heart sank as I had another uneasy feeling.

“…that I was starting to wonder if we’d ever get to test one.” I wanted to tell him to go to hell, to take his tests and shove them; but I just couldn’t, I was too scared to talk back.

"In any case let me show you around. I'm sure you must be anxious to know what this school has to offer," Kihara said in a cynical tone as he began to leave his office.

"Well don't just stand there you little brat, move!" Kihara shouted back at me when I hesitated to follow. Taking his cue the female guard began to slightly push on my shoulder.

"Come on, kid," she said as I was forced to tag along.

The director first showed me the training facilities; these were a series of long hallways filled with enclosed rooms.

The rooms' size and content varied greatly, all depending on the students' needs. The only thing they had in common with one another was the large, reinforced window they all contained.

Through those windows, the scientist would analyze the student's progress through sensors hidden in the room.

The students inside them would practice their full range of powers doing certain exercises, from the basic telekinesis and telepathy to the more esoteric and difficult to describe.

One student's exercise in particular was incredibly vicious. Numerous turrets were firing at a girl with short brown hair that was roughly the same age as me.

Bullet after bullet hit her body, yet they had no effect; not even a scratch. It was almost like she was the terminator or something.

But even though that seemed vicious, it was nothing compared to the treatment another student received. In the hallway right next to me, a teenage boy was getting beaten to the ground by several staff members.

For a second there I thought it might have been some other kind of exercise, but the student's screams as he got bashed with the guards' batons made me think otherwise.

When the director saw the shock on my face, he decided to take the opportunity to make things clear to me…

"See that Kuro-chan? That's what happens when you start acting like a shitty little brat," Kihara said as he grabbed my chin and forced me to look him in the eyes.

"Although I'm sure you are going to be a good girl and behave yourself; RIGHT!?"Kihara emphasized at the end, almost forcing me to agree through intimidation.

"Ah ha ha- yes sir…" I said with a weak smile, agreeing with him meekly.

After a while we reached a room that was larger than the rest; this one was filled with reclining leather chairs not unlike those you would find at the dentist's office.

What was different; however, were the leather straps and oval shaped helmets that were placed on the students.

"Now these here are the Personal Reality Brain Modifiers or _head masseurs_ as I call them. Using the latest technology in visual and auditive stimulation, we are able to help you brats reach your full potential."

While Kihara explained his _head masseurs_ in an almost uninterested tone, I looked at the students sitting down on them. Several of the students were buckling violently, almost as if they were having seizures. While others were gasping, moaning, or even screaming in pain, yet the director and the other scientists acted as if it was nothing.

I wanted to yell at them right then and there, to tell them: “Can't you see they are suffering you idiots!” Instead I just kept quiet. Scared of what they would do to me if I'd speak out.

"Director, the students are waiting for the experiment," said one of the staff members after Kihara finished his explanation.

"Good, I'll be right there," Kihara answered quickly as his bored tone began to show some excitement.

He then smiled at me with that sardonic smile of his and said, "Oh that's right Kuro-chan, why don't you come with me to the coliseum?"

_The coliseum_ , as Kihara lovingly called it, seemed at first sight like a bigger, more heavily reinforced version of the exercise rooms. At closer inspection and with the proper knowledge, however, one could spot two key differences.

For starters, the reinforced window was high above the room; unlike the others, the coliseum was underground so that the walls could sustain more damage and keep the damage to the facility to a minimum. As for the other difference, you had to be inside the room to notice.

The place had a faint smell of blood around it, one that could not be washed away no matter how much they tried.

I was with Kihara on the other side of the window, the _spectator’s room_ as the director would call it. Around me numerous scientists worked with advance computers analyzing the _experiment._  
While the emperor, on the other hand, would just stand there enjoying the show.

In the coliseum below there were two students battling each others; a beautiful teenage girl with long, brown hair, fought against a black haired young man with piercings in his face.

The black-haired teen, who struck me as a hoodlum, was a powerful pyrokinetic who could create combustions by simply concentrating his gaze at a single point; and that's exactly what he  
did as he tried to set his foe on fire. The girl, however, could avoid most of his attacks by being in constant motion, since the boy took a moment to make the complex calculations needed to ignite a fire.

Even though the girl's constant movement made it very difficult for her opponent to catch her with his attack, sometimes that wasn't enough; the flames at times getting uncomfortably close to her.

In those cases the girl's hand would glow unnaturally and some kind of energy shield would blow the blazes away. Once she had pushed the fire away with her shield, she would counterattack with some kind of energy beam.

This beam, while incredibly fast and powerful, was slow to charge up and followed a fixed trajectory, giving its target enough time to move out of its way.

What's more, if while the beam was charging up the boy used his pyrokinesis on it, the buildup energy would collapse, spelling disaster for the girl.

For that reason the girl could only counterattack once she had driven out the fires with her shield, giving her enough time to charge up her beam before her opponent could start another fire.

It was true that she could have just exchanged with the hoodlum by driving his flames away and then firing back, but that held too many risks. It was not always assured that that she would drive the flames away without causing her any burns. Furthermore, there was always the slight chance that the boy would manage to start a fire while she was charging her attack. And if that happened, it'd all be over.

Instead, when the fight began, the girl charged straight at her opponent, who in turn tried to set her on fire. This forced the girl to side step or roll to the side to avoid getting burned.  
  
As she used her shield, she would fire back to keep her opponent on his toes. To a casual viewer, like me back then, it seemed like they were both on a deadlock.

However, it was all going well according to the girl's plan. After several minutes of constant dodging, shooting; blocking, and counter shooting, she was closing in on the distance. The girl was now just a few meters away from her opponent, and when the boy once again used his pyrokinesis against her, the girl; as before, used her shield to block. Instead of firing back however, she continued to charge at him.

The hoodlum, who was expecting her to fire her beam, was caught off guard with a kick to the face. While the blow wasn't so hard as to knock him out, it stunned him and took  
away his concentration long enough for the girl's second and final attack.

When the boy recovered from the hit and managed to look back at his opponent, it was all over.  
The girl was smiling sadistically at him, her beam fully charged. Before he could do anything like dodge or say something akin to "I give up," the beam had gone through his chest.

The carnage that followed scarred me for the rest of my life. The beam was large enough to turn most of his abdomen into ash, yet not large enough to incinerate the rest of his body.

As a result, his limbs and head flew in different directions, spraying blood all over the coliseum. I would have puked if I had eaten anything back then. Instead I collapsed on my knees, my whole body shaking in horror as my heart sank into complete despair; thoughts like 'I'm going to die in here!' running through my mind.

The others around me, however, couldn't care less. They just kept working indifferently on their computers as if nothing had happened; all except for Kihara that is...

"GWA HAHAHAHA awesome finish there, Mugino-chan," laughed Kihara as he praised the girl called Mugino through the intercom.

Mugino in response simply waved at her spectator in a classy way, before leaving the coliseum as if nothing had happened; her face and attitude not showing even the slightest hint of remorse at what she just did.

Seeing that I was on the verge of tears, Kihara tried to calm me down.

"There, there Kuro-chan. I know this seems scary but the students use the coliseum to resolve their differences in a productive manner," Kihara said in a mocking tone.

"I'm sure you won't get hurt if you keep your head down and behave yourself," he continued as he ruffled my hair once again. For whatever reason, Kihara's words managed to calm me down.

“Well then, let me show you to your room. Oh that's right Kuro-chan! Since you are a new student here, why don't I put you with our ace? I’m sure that he will be more than happy to take care of a cute little girl like you." I wiped my tears and followed him silently; perhaps in my despair I wanted to believe what he said, that maybe just this once he wasn't being sarcastic.

In the school's west wing stood the dorm; the whole place was so bland and unadorned that it reminded me of a mental institution more than anything else.

It was just a series of long hallways with large white doors on each side. Each room 3 square meters in diameter with twin beds, a small desk in the middle, and a small barred window on the end of the wall.

"You know Kuro-chan, it's nice that you are going to meet our ace." said Kihara as I followed him through the hallways. "You see, there's a little something that I wanted the two of you to work on."

Like at other times, that ironic tone of his made me suspicious. "You will help me out, won't you?" Even so, the fear of what would happen if I refused, trumped my suspicions as I nodded back in silence.

After walking past several empty rooms we reached the end of the hallway; in front of me stood the aces’ room. Looking around, I wondered why the other rooms were empty; it was as if this place was segregated from the rest of the dorm rooms. The answer I would later find out was inside that door.

As the director opened the door I saw that the insides were no different from the others, just a small room with two beds and a desk with a lamp. The student, however, was.

The “ace”, Kihara spoke of, was a young albino boy, not a year older than thirteen. As he turned his gaze at us, his eyes seemed like those of a psychopath.

"Well if it isn't Kihara-kun… who's that next to you, your new girlfriend? I didn't know you'd liked them that young you sick fuck!" The boy said with a snide smile, his mocking tone not at all dissimilar to Kihara's.

"Oh my… aren't we projecting you little runt? And here I was hoping that you could be a nice little sempai for Kuro-chan, since I know you are into lolis." Kihara answered with a snide remark of his own.

The two of them seemed locked in a competition on who could piss the other off the most by being a dick.

"Ha ha ha! Have you been drinking again, you shit? You put that brat near me and I'll tear her to shreds!"

I jumped back and tried to run away when I heard those words. The insane look in his eyes didn't make me doubt him for even a second.

"Now, now Accelerator, there's no need to get all tsundere on me." Kihara mocked back as he pushed me inside the room and locked the door, trapping me inside.

"No! Let me out you jerk!" I shouted at Kihara, trying desperately to open the door even though it was to no avail. It felt like I had just been caged inside with a wild tiger, a wild albino tiger for that matter.

The director, however, just ignored me. Leaving me behind with these words:

"You kiddies have fun."


	2. Chapter 2

Kihara had just turned tail and run; dumping the little shit with me. Just what the hell was that bastard thinking putting her here? The brown-haired, twin pigtailed girl was banging desperately at the door, trying to find some way of opening it.  
When I began to approach her, the pipsqueak turned around to face me; her mouth twisting into a fake smile in an effort to appease me.  
“H-hi there onii-cha-” I quickly interrupted with a blow to the door right next to her. My vectors making it shake violently.   
“Do I look like your fucking onii-chan?” I said coldly, my eyes glaring down at the trembling girl.   
The brat in turn completely lost it, breaking down in tears.  
“No, don’t hurt me please!” The pipsqueak cried desperately, her body crouching down to the floor. The brat using her hands to cover her face in a sad attempt to protect herself. I liked to intimidate any student who got too close to me, that way they wouldn’t dare bothering me. But scaring a little girl like her, who looked no older than nine or ten, was too low. Even for me.  
“I want my mommy!” She cried loudly, her incessant high pitch wailing making my temples feel like they would explode. God, was her voice annoying!   
“Shut the fuck up you little shithead!” I shouted loudly as I gave her some space and lay down on my bed; maybe the kid would calm down once she saw that I wasn’t going to do anything to her.  
“I hate this place! I want to go home!” The little shit however, just kept on crying and crying; most likely discharging all the pent up pain and fear she had bottled up inside since her arrival. Something that wasn’t so unusual for newcomers here.   
My patience was running short though; for well over an hour she had been crying now with no signs of stopping. I was sure that if she didn’t shut up already, I really was going to tear her to shreds.   
“I’m trying to sleep here you damn pipsqueak, do you want to die!?” I snapped angrily, it was late at night when Kihara had brought her to my room, so I was already tired.   
But all those threats just backfired on me as the brat cried even harder. She just kept on bawling in the same spot in front of the door, her head resting on her bent knees.   
“You dumbass, do you even know what this place is?” Since threats weren’t working on her, I tried another approach. “You are in the underworld of Academy City, crying isn’t going to help you survive in here!”  
“Then…then how do I make it here?” The girl asked in between sobs, her teary eyes looking at me.  
“Oh I wouldn’t know about that; I’m not a weakling after all. Usually though, worms like you tend to stick together.” I mused with a cocky smile.   
“But I don’t know anyone here.” the pipsqueak complained as she finally began to calm down.  
“Tough shit then…” I answered indifferently, shifting to the other side of the bed as I tried to sleep; enjoying some peace and quiet since she was deep in thought.  
“Then… can I stick… with you?” the girl asked hesitantly.  
“ Ha ha ha, fuck no; why would I want an obnoxious brat like you!?” Just the thought of that little shit being near me all the time made me wanna kill myself.  
The rejection however, made the pipsqueak cry even louder than before; her endless annoying wailing filling the room. Back then I hadn’t realized that I could have used my powers to block the sound waves entering my ears. As such the only options I had left were killing her or agreeing with her.   
“Alright, fine; you can be my underling!” I snapped angrily in defeat. I don’t know why I just didn’t kill her; all I knew was that I wanted her to shut up so I could get some sleep.  
“Really…?” The pipsqueak looked at me back as she wept, her sad eyes trying to confirm what I said.  
“Yes really, but underlings do as they are told; so shut up and go to sleep!” That was finally enough to stop her wailing for good as she obeyed me and went to her bed.   
I didn’t really mean anything by that, but if that was enough to stop her tantrum for the night; then so be it. Besides, once she had been here long enough she would see what a sick monster I was and learn to keep her distance.  
For the rest of the night the brat wept silently on her bed, a few muffled sniffles the only sound coming out from her. It was kind of messed up for a little girl like her to be in a place like this. But this was the dark side of Academy City after all; things like this were common place. 

The light of the sun coming from the small window on the room woke me up the next morning. The whole scene was pretty serene compared to the night before, the only sound being the chirping of some birds outside.   
As for the pipsqueak, she was sitting on the bed staring blankly towards the front wall; looking at her I wondered if she had even slept at all. With an annoyed click of my tongue I got up and went to the door.  
“Where are you going? The doors’ locked.” The girl asked in confusion, she probably thought that the only way out was for someone to open it from outside.  
“Not anymore.” I said as I tapped on the door, the whole thing opening instantly as I used my vectors on it.   
As I got out of my room and began to walk through the corridors, I realized what an idiot I was. Why didn’t I just open the door and kick the pipsqueak out? She probably wanted to get out of there anyway. The brat herself was now following me like a lost puppy.   
I ignored her however, and headed for the mess hall to get something to eat.   
The mess hall was a huge space filled with large, rectangular tables. The whole place pretty chaotic as the boisterous chatter between the students filled the hall. Or atleast it did until I arrived. Once I was there however the others usually quieted, mainly because they knew what would happen if they’d annoyed me.   
At the end of the room, in the front corner, was a long line of students waiting to be served. Normally the students would get at the back of the line when they arrived, but I wasn’t just any normal student, after all.   
I just cut through the front of the line and got served; none of the other students had enough guts to complain. Hell, most of them even backed away in fear, all except for the pipsqueak who stood right behind me; bewildered as to why the others acted that way.   
While the other students would eat together in their own little cliques and gangs. I sat alone on my own personal table eating peacefully. Or at least I would be, if it wasn’t for that little shit.   
“Why the hell are you still following me, dumbass?” I asked the girl seated on the other side of the table.  
“Hmm..? What are you talking about aniki, aren’t underlings supposed to be with their boss?” the girl said as she looked at me while gobbling down her food.   
“So I’m ‘aniki’ now, huh?” She must have seen some retarded yakuza movie for her to call me that.  
“Feh! Whatever…” I said with an annoyed scoff. I didn’t push the issue however, and just ignored her; eating for a few minutes quietly. The little shit however, had to go and ruin that with that irritating, shrilly voice of hers.   
“So aniki, um…” she said awkwardly in an effort to break the ice, “What kind of power do you have?”   
I looked back at her with an annoyed look for a moment, “Redirection…” I said indifferently as I ate my food.  
“Redirection; what’s that about?” asked the pipsqueak as she tilted her head inquisitively.   
“It means I can change the force and speed of anything I touch.” I explained as I reached out for the girls’ milk carton; touching it with one of my fingers before it flew off rapidly to the left side. I had hoped that my little demonstration would upset her enough that she would stop pestering me, instead the pipsqueak touched my coffee can in return; teleporting it to her other hand.   
“Well I can teleport anything I touch too,” the girl said as she drank from my can. “Although I can’t control it all that wel…” the little shit stopped in mid sentence when she saw the death glare I was giving her.  
“Do you wanna die kid?” I asked coldly, my tone filled with killing intent even though I tried to hold it back.   
“Um, no…” she said in a soft, trembling voice; as her eyes began to get wet with fear.  
“Then go and get me another fucking one!” I snapped angrily at the girl as she got up quickly and went to retrieve one; the students on the line having enough pity for her to let her get another one quickly.   
That little outburst managed to quiet her down, the pipsqueak not daring to open her mouth for the rest of the meal. She still kept following me however, as I left for the rec-room.  
Now in this “school” there are two types of students. While the majority here are like the brat, outcasts and child errors that are exploited and kept against their will. There are those that are like me, monsters so powerful and destructive that it is impossible for the staff to keep confined in this place without our consent. For that reason this place wasn’t as bad as one might think.   
This place had libraries and computer labs for everyone to use. There were also many exercise rooms which were fitted so that the student could do recreational sports like tennis, basketball, etc; there were even some that had swimming pools in them.   
And then there was the rec-room; which was a large squared lobby where many students would go to spend their free time. From pool tables to pinball machines, this place had a multitude of ways to keep us busy. There was even a large high-def TV at the end of the room, where a dozen or so students would sit around several couches and watch television together.   
Or at least they did until I got in front of the television and callously changed the channel. As always the others just left in silent indignation; too scared to say anything or even stay near me for that matter. I would usually sit alone in the large leather sofa in the middle, almost as if it were my throne as tyrant of the school. But like other times before it, the little shit just had to sit right next to me.   
I glared at her angrily once again. But when her face turned all teary-eyed with fear; I decided to just ignore her. I didn’t want her to start another one of her fits after all. Instead I took the remote control and began to flip through the channels. We had the best cable network in Academy City, more than 400 channels; all of them however, were total crap.   
“Meh!” I grumbled; turning the television off and throwing the remote to the other side of the couch.   
I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hand, bored that I had nothing to do as I waited. But a moment later I heard the television getting turned back on. The kid had taken the remote and changed it to some retarded, soap opera.   
That insufferable little shit just kept on watching show after show of asinine crap. I had to endure it for what felt like forever, until thankfully; she fell asleep, her head resting on my shoulder. For a second I thought of pushing her head off me, but then I risked the chance of waking her up, so instead I turned off the TV and just tolerated her proximity.  
I kept looking at the time as I grew more and more pissed. The other students were giving looks of disbelief that I, Accelerator, the worse monster of this school; had some little kid almost cuddling with him! And no matter how many times I forced them to look away by glaring back at them, they just kept looking back. Finally, after looking at the clock for the hundredth time; the moment had arrived…   
\---------  
I had fallen asleep while watching TV. When I awoke, aniki was no longer there. In fact nobody was there, the whole room almost empty; all except for a teenage girl who was on the couch adjacent to me. It was that sadistic girl called Mugino; the one that I had seen on the coliseum yesterday. She was sitting there watching a popular fashion show.  
“So… you’ve finally decided to wake up.” She said with a friendly smile; sitting all ladylike with her legs crossed.  
“You must be the teleporter; the one that’s been following Accelerator around.” She continued while I coldly looked at her in silence.  
“You are a pretty brave one, you know. But you should stop before that freak kills you; if you want, you can follow me instead.” I didn’t really buy that she had any interest in my well being, and while I didn’t want to have anything to do with her; I wasn’t dumb enough to risk her anger by telling her off.  
“What’s the matter kid, cat got your tongue?” Asked Mugino with a piercing look on her eyes, seemingly annoyed at my lack of response.   
“Thanks but no thanks; I’d probably end up like that guy on the coliseum if I followed you.” I answered as politely as possible, even if the cold and accusatory look I gave her said otherwise.   
“Oh him; that freak was a pyromaniac who got off setting people on fire. Trust me; the world is better without him.” She said with a smile on her face. Not an apologetic one that was trying to explain the situation to someone, but a big boastful one that was full of pride in its handiwork.   
“In any case I refuse. Aniki might be an antisocial jerk but at least he is not a sadistic killer like you!” I said in a disdainful tone, as I was unable to hide my anger over her attitude anymore. But Mugino, who I feared of upsetting with my response, began to cackle loudly instead.   
“Oh is that so?” She asked in a mocking tone as she got up from the couch, “Let me show you something sweetie.” Mugino said as she began to leave. When she looked back and saw my hesitance; she began to wave a finger at me as if she was calling a dog.   
“Cooome on…” She chirped in a melodic, almost patronizing tone. I did as asked and began to follow her. Even though I didn’t trust her, I had nothing else to do at the moment. Besides, I was a little curious as to what she wanted to show me.   
After passing through several corridors with Mugino, I noticed the absence of other students; the whole place almost deserted except for a few staff members here and there. When we turned to the left and entered a large hall, I saw why.  
That large room was completely packed with them; it was almost impossible to even enter inside. Only Mugino’s glare gave us enough space to get in and see what was happening. The students within were all looking up at a corner of the room. There, on the upper part of the eastern wall, stood a large screen.   
Looking up at it, I saw two students facing each other. It was Aniki and that ‘terminator’ girl that I had seen on one of the exercise rooms before. They were both in the coliseum. It seemed like it wasn’t just the director who liked this sort of ‘entertainment’.   
[“What’s the matter ‘knock off’; are you starting to piss your pants now that you’re facing the real thing?”] taunted Accelerator with a cocky smirk. That place must have had some amazing microphones and cameras if the screen was able to show us what they said and did so perfectly clear.  
[“‘Knock off’ this, ‘rip off’ that; that’s all you say…”] the brown haired girl answered in a coolly if somewhat annoyed tone. [“I’m super sick of you looking down on all of my hard work.”] she continued with a look on her face that reminded me of a kid that was finally standing up to his bully.   
[“Hard work; hahahahaha, don’t make me laugh!? All you did was copy my patterns you cheap copycat!”] Aniki sneered with a disdainful look in return. [“Then again, that might have been a huge achievement for a mongrel like you.”] he continued to mock; it was almost like he was trying to provoke her by being as derisive as possible.   
While they continued arguing, one of the students approached Mugino. “Geez; Saiai must be pretty confident to go and challenge Accelerator like that.” the student mused with a smarmy grin on his face; he was a tall teen with light brown hair and seemed to have shady air about him.   
“Overconfident is more like it.” Mugino answered frigidly as she did her best to ignore him. Even though their eyes never met, as Mugino kept her gaze glued to the screen; the tension between those two seemed to increase with every passing second.   
“So you won’t bet on your friend then? How cold of you Mugino…” the tall teen mocked; apparently watching the fights wasn’t enough for some students; they had to bet on them to keep things interesting.   
“Fuck off Kakine; you think I’m going to bet my territory for a fight like this!?” Mugino snapped angrily at the student called Kakine. “Just what kind of fool do you take me for!?”   
Although the students had no money to bet, they improvised with what they had. The older ones would bet tobacco or other stuff like that, while the younger would bet their mangas or games. At higher stakes whole gangs would bet their rights to use and control certain exercise rooms or ‘territories’ as they called it.   
And that’s what was happening between those two; Kakine, who was the leader of one gang, was taunting Mugino, the leader of the rival faction, by proposing that bet. However the tension between those two began to dissolve as the argument on the screen got to a head.   
[“You bastard I’ll show you that my ‘offense armor’ is as good as yours!”] shouted the usually mellow Saiai. It seemed like aniki’s constant taunting was finally getting through to her.  
[“Come at me then, what are you waiting for ‘knock off’!?”] Aniki said with a psychotic look on his face; his hands extending to the sides as he began to walk casually towards Saiai.   
Since there was nothing else to be said, Saiai began to charge at aniki in return. But just as she was getting closer to him, aniki suddenly dashed at her at full speed; the change of pace catching Saiai by surprise as she was punched in the face, the blow sending her flying against the wall.  
Seeing aniki in action, I began to realize why he was called Accelerator. Not only could he move objects with his power, but his own body as well. His speed was inhumane. Before Saiai could recover from the previous blow he was already on top of her; Leaping in the air as he tried to land a flying kick on her face.   
Luckily Saiai managed to dodge by sidestepping to the right. However a follow up attack by aniki, a kick to the guts, sent her tumbling to the opposite wall of the coliseum; not unlike a ball in a football field. Any normal human would have died if hit by one of those blows. But Saiai, who was indeed like a terminator, got up as if it was nothing.   
[“hahahahaha You know ‘knock off’ I have to give credit where credit is due; if nothing else, you do make an excellent punching bag!”] Mocked aniki with a maniacal laugh, as he rushed at her with blinding speed; unlike before however, Saiai was ready for him.   
While anikis’ strikes were fast and brutal, they were also amateurish; the swing of his punches so wide that an experienced fighter would have had no problem avoiding them. And Saiai, who seemed skilled enough to do just that, kept dodging all of his wild punches by sidestepping or backing away.   
After ducking one particularly long swing. Saia finally gained enough courage to counter attack; landing a solid uppercut on aniki’s chin; only to have her whole body rebound back to the ground.   
“Wh-what was that!?” I asked Mugino in bewilderment. It just didn’t make sense, one moment Saiai’s fist was about to hit aniki and then the next she was staggering back and falling on her butt.   
“What, you’ve been with him the whole day and you didn’t even know about his reflection?” Mugino asked in a mocking tone, not unlike the way aniki was mocking Saiai at that moment.   
While Mugino began to laugh, Kakine, who was listening to our conversation, finally explained, “Kid, that’s Accelerators’ ultimate defense.” He said while looking at me as if I were a bug.   
“Basically, he repulses anything that touches him with his AIM field.” Mugino clarified as I saw his power in action. Every time Saiai was about to hit aniki, she would bounce back and fall on the ground; All the while being sneered by Accelerator.   
“Mugino, who’s this little mouse, were you so scared that Accelerator is going to kill your other pet that you went and got yourself a new one?” Kakine taunted as he gazed at Mugino; his eyes never bothering to look at a ‘mouse’ like me.   
“She’s Number ones’ new pet actually.” She answered with a wide smirk.   
“Is that so?” Kakine asked in skepticism; his face growing sterner as now, he decides to glare at me. His look gave me a chill down my spine, somewhat reminding me of aniki when he gets really mad.   
“Tell me sweetie, do you even know why you are here?” surprisingly it was Mugino who broke his gaze by standing between us and asking me that. Somehow it felt like she had just protected me even though her tone was patronizing.   
“Something about working with aniki..?” I answered while trying to remember what Kihara had told me before.   
“That’s right. Everyone here; this facility even; was made so they could test and study ‘anikis’ abilities.” The beautiful girl said as she smiled smugly at kakine; emphasizing the word ‘aniki’ to him.  
“Take Saiai for example; that nitrogen armor she uses, was developed by copying Accelerators’ powers.” Mugino explained; as I realized why aniki went on about Saiai being a ‘Rip off.’  
“Is he really that impressive?” I asked in disbelief; it was true that aniki had to be a pretty powerful guy for so many students to be scared of him. But for this whole place to be made just because of one ESPer was a little hard to buy.   
“Bah; he’s just some overrated fag!” Kakine said dismissively as he began to leave; his voice however seemed to have a bit of jealousy to it.   
“Then there are those like Kakine there; idiots who think that they can overcome Accelerators’ reflect.” Mugino said to me, even though in reality she was taunting the brown haired student.   
“Feh! I’ll crush that bastard; just wait and see!” he said bitterly as he glanced back at Mugino for a moment, before he disappeared into the crowd.   
Back on the screen Saiai appeared to have grown dispirited. She was on all fours, her behind facing her opponent. [“Hahaha, you just have to tease me with your ass; don’t you knock off?”] Accelerator jeered, Saiai’s suggestive pose giving him another chance to toy with her.  
[“I must admit… your’ ‘reflect’ is really something… I can’t even get one hit no matter how much I try… ”] The exhausted Saiai panted as she staggered up slowly.   
[“But you haven’t broken through my armor either; so don’t look down on me, you super-asshole!”] Saiai said, bellowing loudly at the end almost as if it were a battle cry; her eyes glaring at aniki with renewed determination.   
[“My, aren’t we cocky, knock off?”] Aniki mused as his eyes narrowed in response. Then suddenly he had closed the distance and punched Saiai in the gut, her body rebounding again. Unlike before however; when she recovered from the hit, some sort of sheet of ice began to fall from her skin.  
Saiai’s ‘Offense Armor’ was starting to break down.  
[“Silly knock off; it’s not that I couldn’t break through your armor, but that I didn’t want to.”] Aniki explained smugly to a confused Saiai. [“Did you forget? I can control any vector, even those of your ridiculous armor.”] He continued as he resumed his onslaught on the tired girl.   
Saiai in turn tried her best to avoid aniki’s attack. But by now she was just too tired to dodge Accelerator’s wild flurry. As a result, every time aniki connected a blow, more and more of her nitrogen armor was being destroyed.   
[“Noooo!!”] Saiai screamed not unlike a person who was having is clothes slowly torn up [“Stop, I give up!”] she begged uselessly as she used all her remaining strength to block and try to reform her nitrogen armor.   
But Saiais’ pleas fell on deaf ears as Accelerator began laughing in a creepy high pitch tone as he continued his merciless beat down. [“No, don’t hurt me please!”] While Saiai in turn cried helplessly as she lay curled up in a ball.   
Hearing her words however, aniki grew silent and stopped his onslaught for a moment. [What are you!?] He asked coldly as he resumed his attack on her armor.   
[“W-what?”] Saiai asked quizzically; her mind trying to understand his question as she tried her best to endure his assault.  
[“Say it! What are you!?] Accelerator demanded, his tone now reminding me more of a sort of school bully than the maniacal sadist from a few seconds before.  
Saiai remained silent for a moment as she likely tried to find the answer that would save her life, [“…I’m a rip off, a knock off; just a super-cheap imitation, just please stop!”] She blurted out hysterically.  
[“Good, now don’t super forget it rip off.] Aniki said sarcastically as he stopped his assault and began to leave. Saiai in turn was in a complete mess as she started bawling on the floor.  
Now that the fight was over, the students began exiting the hall. Saying things like; “I think Saiai pissed herself back there.” And, “what did you expect? She was fighting against Accelerator after all.” as they left.   
Meanwhile, I stood there silently watching the screen; my mind on the fight that had just transpired. “Now what were you saying about your aniki not being a sadistic killer?” Mugino asked me mockingly.  
“He didn’t kill her now, did he?” I answered coldly at Mugino; my eyes giving her an annoyed look.  
“Suit yourself kid, just don’t go crying over to me when things turn sour.” I heard her say pretentiously, as I too began to leave.   
I didn’t do much else for the rest of the day; afraid of getting into a confrontation with any the other students. Instead I sat in a corner and did my best not to get on anyone’s way; as I thought about what Mugino said.   
Even though I had acted dismissively towards Mugino; the truth was that I was considering her offer. And while she didn’t seem any saner than aniki, at least she was less hostile. Every time I tried to talk to Accelerator he would glare at me so angrily, sometimes I even thought he was going to snap and hurt me.  
I didn’t see aniki until night time; when I had returned to our room. He was sitting on his bed writing something on a notebook. I wanted to ask about the fight but was too scared of his ire. So instead I sat on my bed and began to stare at Accelerator; trying to find the courage to confront him.  
“What?” In the end it was aniki who broke the silence, as he gave me a quick annoyed glance before resuming with his notebook.  
“You weren’t going to hurt her for real, right?” I asked hesitantly, almost as if I was asking him to deny it.  
“So you saw me in action then?” Aniki mused as a he stopped scribbling in the note book.   
“See, every once in awhile, one of these pieces of shit gets cocky, so I need to put them in their place;” He continued as he looked at me with a big arrogant smirk. “That bitch was smart enough to learn hers, so I let her off easily; it’s as simple as that.”  
“So you really would have done it…” I whispered to myself more than anything else.  
“Would have done it?” Accelerator asked as he laughed hysterically. “Pipsqueak, let me make things clear…” he said while glaring at me with that psychotic look of his. “I’m a monster, I eat girls like you for breakfast; you mess with me and I’ll squash you like a bug.”  
“Mugino was right about you then.” I told ani-, no Accelerator, sternly; his arrogant attitude was starting to annoy me.   
“Oh so you’ve met that fourth rated ojou-san?” Accelerator apparently had to have a nickname for just about anyone.  
“Mmhm, she said that I should stop following you before I get hurt and join her group instead.” I don’t know what I expected from Accelerator as I said that. Maybe I wanted to see if he would grow upset or just a little annoyed even. Just show that he wasn’t completely indifferent of me.  
“Good! You know how sick and tired I am of you pestering me all the time?” Accelerator said. Even while smiling snidely, there seemed to be a hint of anger in his voice.   
“You just go and follow that rich girl from now on. Just don’t bother me! Hell, don’t even talk to me again you little shit!” He continued as he placed the notebook inside the drawer of the desk on the middle. Before turning off the lights and going to sleep.  
I couldn’t sleep for much of that night. This place felt so overbearingly gloomy. The small room so obscured that I almost couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or not. Even worse the air conditioner was so cold that the flimsy sheets were not enough to keep me warm. These two things, combined with the loneliness that I felt, to push me to the brink of tears.   
I missed my parents so much… why did they forget about me? Was I really that bad? Before I knew it, I was sobbing thinking of them. Then I remembered were I was and who was sleeping next to me. So I forced myself to stop crying in case he woke up.  
In an effort to calm myself, I reminisced about today’s events. Something didn’t add up in my head, if Accelerator was as bad as he and the others said, why didn’t he hurt me then? Why did he put up with me the whole day? He could have gotten rid of me real easily.  
I got my answer sooner than expected as I heard a faint murmur resonating through the stillness of the room. It was Accelerator; he was whispering something in his sleep. The room was so quiet that I could almost make out what he was saying.  
“Mo…mmy…” He was calling out for his mother. Aniki, for all his posturing about being such a monster, was just like me in the end; he was just a kid.


	3. A Bond in the Darkness.

I was alone when I woke up the next morning. It appeared like I had overslept and that guy didn’t bother to wake me. Of course that was to be expected considering what was said the other night.  
Luckily the door was unlocked; so I could go to the mess hall and get something to eat.   
It took quite a bit of time for me to get served now that Accelerator wasn’t there with me. As I waited, I looked around for aniki. Unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen.   
Since I couldn’t find him anywhere, the only other person I knew was Mugino. She was sitting in a corner; eating on her own. Hesitantly, I walked over to her.   
“Well, well, did you have a change of heart sweetie?” Mugino teased with a smile on her face.   
“Um… well, more or less…” I muttered coyly as I sat on the opposite side of her.   
“Anyway I wanted to ask you about your friend the terminator girl.” I quickly changed the subject. I still wasn’t so sure about her.  
“Terminator girl, you mean Saiai?” She asked a bit puzzled as to whom I was referring.   
“Yeah Saiai, how is she? She isn’t seriously hurt, is she?” I asked. One of the reasons that I went to Mugino was so she would tell me how her friend was doing, as I had been a little worried about her since the fight with aniki.   
“Well the doctors told me she was fine…” She paused, a hint concern seeming to escape out of her tone. “I didn’t see her last night though; so I was planning on visiting her after I was done eating; you can come with me if you want.”   
“Sure… ” I nodded as I began to eat my food. For a moment there was an awkward silence between us as we ate, but then I saw what Mugino was having for a meal.  
“Hey what are you eating?” I asked in curiosity; unlike the rest of the students here Mugino was using chopsticks as she ate some kind of bento.  
“Oh, this is my salmon bento.” Mugino chirped happily as she took another bite. “Look’s tasty, right?”   
“It sure does.” That was an understatement. Compared to the mediocre food that I and the others were served, her bento looked absolutely delectable. “Let me try some.” I asked, taking my fork in my right hand and reaching out to take a small bite to eat. Mugino reacted violently, however. Taking one of her chopsticks and trying to stab my quickly evading, right hand.   
“My dear Kuro-chan, I heard about your little incident with accelerator yesterday.” Mugino said with a fake smile, likely referring to when I took a drink out of aniki’s coffee can. “So let me make myself clear, if you dare take any of my salmon you die!” Mugino warned, her eyes giving off a piercing glare even though she kept her fake smile.   
I quickly backed away in fear, Mugino’s threat reminding me what was bothering me about her. “Mugino-san I have to ask, what’s your angle?”   
“My angle… what do you mean my angle?” she asked with an amused smile on her face, taking another bite of her salmon.   
“Why did you try to befriend me yesterday? You don’t seem like the kind of person that would bother with a useless kid like me.” I asked, looking at her warily.   
“My, aren’t you a cynical girl. Is it so difficult to believe that I would give a helping hand to a cute, little kouhai like you?” Mugino mocked in disbelief.   
I still kept looking at her skeptically however; what she did at the coliseum was still fresh on my mind, so her trying to look after me out of the kindness of her heart was a little hard to buy.   
In return Mugino sighed in exasperation and said. “I’m always looking for unique espers to join my group. And since you are teleporter with a lot of guts, I thought you’d be a good addition.”   
“I’m not that brave, really…” I whispered timidly; the truth was that I was terrified of this place.   
Mugino, seeing my self-doubt, began to chuckle a little bit as she pat my head. “You are the brat that dared to get close to number one after all; besides…”   
She paused for a moment as her hand lowered to my cheek and began to pinch it in a playful manner. “You are a pretty bold kid you know, getting all sassy with me even though you know what I’m capable of.”   
“I mean really… your cheekiness can be cute at times, but you need to be careful whom you are talking to sweetie.” Even though Mugino chirped cheerfully, the grip on my cheek grew painfully harder with each passing word.  
“Now that that’s settled lets be good friends, shall we?” Mugino said with a bright smile as she released her hold. I hesitantly nodded back in return as my hand nursed my wounded cheek; her veiled threat making it perfectly clear who the boss was.  
The rest of the meal wasn’t so bad afterwards. Mugino at the very least wasn’t as anti-social as Accelerator and was better at holding a conversation. Even so she still had that arrogant air of an ojou-san; at times talking down at me with that condescending tone of hers.  
“Actually, there was another reason why I wanted you to join.” Mugino confessed, looking back at me while I followed right behind.   
“Truth is that it would be troublesome for me if you were to stay close to number one.” We were now passing through several hallways on our way to see Saiai at the infirmary.   
“Why?” I asked, curious to know what other reason there was.   
“That guy… he could easily control this place if he wanted, you know.” Mugino explained in exasperation, “Instead he remains introverted in his own world; completely indifferent to others.” She continued with a smirk on her face even though it seemed to have a hint of jealousy.  
“That’s why groups like my own can exist in the first place.” She admitted as she stopped and sighed for a moment.  
“But say someone shows up and manages to get him out of his shell.” Mugino said as she looked at me with a piercing look through the corner of her eyes. “If someone like that appeared; he or she could threaten the power balance between the factions.” That certain someone was most likely implied to be me as once again her veiled threat was made clear to me.   
“In any case that’s just as a word of advice; while I wouldn’t go as far as to hurt you, others might come after you because of your connection to Accelerator.” Mugino warned as she turned left and passed through a sliding door; entering the medical wing.   
The infirmary wasn’t well maintained to say the least. While the place was filled with countless medical equipment, it didn’t seem as clean as it should; aggravating the problem was how understaffed it was considering how many patients there were.  
Almost every other step I saw someone lying on a bed; which were separated from each other by a thin curtain; giving that person at least some slight privacy. The condition of each patient varied greatly; from broken bones to burn marks, from lacerations to mental trauma.   
But one in particular struck me the most. A black haired girl of roughly the same age as me, her arms were completely missing; her body completely mangled as an insane amalgamation of machines, wires and tubes did their best to keep the unconscious girl alive.   
At any rate most of them were forgotten or even abandoned; the staff only giving them the bare minimum attention to keep them alive. And only then if they were worth it, if the esper in question was valuable enough to even bother; because in here, they weren’t taking care of human beings, merely investments.   
And so after passing several patients we found Saiai sitting on her bed. Even though she didn’t seem to have suffered any serious injury from her fight yesterday; she appeared somewhat depressed; her face seeming a bit down.  
“Knock, knock anybody there?” Mugino called out cheerfully as she approached Saiai; trying to get her attention and out of her slump.  
“Hey Mugino, didn’t see you there.” Saiai answered in a somber tone, smiling weakly at Mugino. “This is an unexpected super surprise.”   
“Yes well, the doctors had told me you were fine, so imagine my surprise when you didn’t show up to our room last night.”   
“I’m sorry that I made you worry, it’s just…” She paused for a moment, her hands holding her bent knees tightly. ”Guess I was embarrassed to show up after I made such a super fool of myself.” Saiai used this as an excuse. Even so she was shaking so much that I thought it was fear the reason that kept her here.   
“That you did…” Said Mugino bluntly, “You should have seen yourself back then,” She continued in a mocking tone. “You even pissed your pants, it was pretty pathetic; ha ha ha ha.”   
“Stop it Mugino!” I said irritably at a chuckling Mugino, this was not the time for her to act so snobbish.  
“But you know…” Mugino in turn placed her hand on my shoulder and said in a softer tone. “Considering the situation you were in, anyone would have soiled their pants; even me…”  
“Kinuhata, you are the toughest person I know. Unlike everybody else, At least you were brave enough to stand up for yourself.” Mugino praised; looking at Saiai with an elegant, almost warm smile on her face.   
“Mugino…” Saiai muttered; looking back somewhat surprised at her friend. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was taken aback by Muginos’ words.  
“So to hell with what the others might think..! If any them has the nerve to talk trash about you, we can just crush them!” Mugino continued, her friendly smile turning into her usual confident smirk.  
“Anyway I brought you cute, Kuro-chan here as a pet! Hope you like her!” Mugino teased as she grabbed me by my shoulders and dragged me in front of her. Almost as if she was presenting me to Saiai.   
“Who are you calling a pet, you old hag?” I retorted, glaring back at Mugino angrily. I don’t know where I got the courage. Maybe Mugino’s kinder words from before made me think I could get away with it.   
“Oh my, and who did you just called an old hag!?” However my transgression was soon punished, the older girl taking hold of my cheeks and pinching them mercilessly.   
“That’s enough Mugino or you might break my super cute pet.” said Saiai with an amused smile on her face. Getting up from the bed and trying to rescue me from my tormentors’ hold. Seeing an improvement in her best friends’ mood, Mugino complied and released me.  
“Hi there Kuro-chan, I’m Kinuhata Saiai. Call me Saiai okay?” She introduced herself, looking at me with a friendly smile.  
“Stop calling me Kuro-chan as if I were some dog,” I answered irately while rubbing my aching cheeks. I hated that nickname. “My name is Shirai Kuroko.”  
“Ah, My apologies Shirai-san…” Saiai chuckled slightly, maintaining her calm, friendly demeanor.  
“It’s ok,” Considering where I was and the people I had met. I was surprised by how nice Saiai was being. “You can call me Kuroko if you want.”  
Looking back at her I began to feel a bit guilty. “Um, Saiai-san... are you alright?” I had come here because I was worried about Kinuhata. Instead I ended up behaving rudely towards her. “Ani- I mean, Accelerator didn’t hurt you too badly; did he?”   
“Nah, I’m super fine, don’t worry.” She answered with an easygoing smile.  
“Kid, you should know just how tough Saiai is. After all, she IS ‘terminator girl’!” Mugino teased, putting stronger emphasis at the end.   
“Terminator girl..?” Saiai asked in confusion.   
“Oh nothing, forget it. Anyway how about we get out of here? This kind of place is really ruining my mood.” Mugino suggested as she began to leave ahead of us.   
Listening to the monotonous beeping of several life monitors around us, as well as the combined heavy smell of anesthetic and other unpleasant bodily fluids; Saiai and I agreed, following right behind.  
I found Saiai to be a much more pleasant person to be around with than Accelerator or Mugino. She was much humbler and less temperamental than those two. She was also easier to talk with as we chit chatted about everything really. From fashion to music, from what television shows we watched and movies stars we liked; I found that we had a lot in common with. She did have poor taste in movies however, many of her favorite ones being pretty obscure or mediocre at best.   
“Look Kuroko, this is what I was talking about.” Saiai said as she showed me the magazine.   
After leaving the medical ward we had gone to the rec-room. Now as we sat in one of the tables; Saiai and I were reading a magazine; while Mugino, who sat next to us, read a novel of hers.  
“Oooh! So this is lingerie?” I asked with excited curiosity. Talking about fashion with Saiai before, the word lingerie had popped out. Looking at the magazine I grew fascinated with those clothes. They had such a mature and classy feel to them.  
“Mmmhm, they are a type of super-special underwear you show off to that special boy you like.” Hearing Saiai explanation, I tried to remember if there was ever a boy I had been close with; there were none really… well except maybe Aniki.   
As for that guy he was as usual watching tv; everyone else just keeping their distance and ignoring him. I kind of felt bad for him. I know that Accelerator pretended like he didn’t care for others, but I thought otherwise. Remembering what he said in his sleep last night; he probably felt lonely deep inside.  
“Looks like it’s almost that time already...” Mugino mused as she stopped reading and got up from her chair.   
“Seems like it,” Saiai answered back; putting her magazine down and getting up as well. “These exercises are such a pain.” She complained while stretching.   
“You coming, Kuroko..?” Saiai asked; seeing that my attention was elsewhere.  
“Nah, you guys go on ahead.” I answered with a reassuring smile, “I think I’ll stay a bit longer.”   
For a moment Saiai and Mugino stared at each other with an indecipherable look on their faces. “Okay… you take care now.” Saiai said with a somewhat worried frown on her face before leaving with Mugino.  
After looking at the magazine for a couple of more minutes I decided to go to the couch. “Aniki!” I shouted, jumping on top of Aniki as I began to glomp on him.  
The fuck are you doing!?” Aniki shouted in a mix of anger and shock as he tried his best to dislodge himself from my hug.   
“Oh aniki, you looked kind of lonely sitting there all by yourself.” I answered as I kept holding him happily and rubbing my face next to him. “So I thought that maybe you’d like a hug.”  
“Well you are wrong!” Accelerator retorted, angrily grabbing me from my neck and face and shoving me off. “Now fuck off!”   
“Besides, The passions of the law is about to start.” I said; that soap being both my excuse and ulterior motive.   
“Eh? And what makes you think I’m gonna let ya?” sneered Accelerator as he held the remote, his attitude not unlike a bully who was taunting his helpless victim.  
However, I already had a weapon that was effective against him. “But…but…” I said as my eyes got all watery.   
“‘The passions of the law’ is my favorite show!” I blurted out before crying out loud; doing the same type of bawling that I used whenever I wanted my father to get me something.  
As expected, after a few moments of hearing my weeping, aniki relented. “tsk, do as you like you little shit!” Exasperated Accelerator, throwing me the remote as he then got up from the couch and began to leave.  
“Wait, where are you going?” I asked looking back at aniki; I didn’t think he would run off.  
“Where do you think?” Accelerator asked in return, merely turning his heads to the side and looking at me through the corner of his eyes. “Didn’t you notice that everyone else is gone?” He then continued walking towards the door.  
It was just like he said; the whole room was empty except for aniki and me. But just as Accelerator was about to open the door and leave, someone else opened it and came in. It was the director.  
“Ah Kihara-kun, tell me, just how desperate were you?” Accelerator taunted. The instant their eyes met, the two of them began to sneer at each other. “I know that like the rest of you shitheads, you have a massive hard for all that stupid data. But did you have to bring some little shit from the streets?”  
“How moving you faggot,” Without skipping a beat Kihara answered in kind. “Is Accelerator worried about his little friend, hmm?”   
“As if…”Aniki spat as he continued forward even though Kihara was in the way. The director quickly sidestepped to the side however, realizing that Accelerator intended to shove him out of the way with his reflect if he didn’t move.  
“More like in your hurry to find a teleporter you were too stupid to confirm if she was capable enough for the test,” taunted Accelerator just outside the door; placing his finger under his chin like he was trying to remember something. “So tell me, how long till you run out of time, a couple of weeks; a month at most? Time is ticking Kihara-kun.”   
“Fuck you!” Snapped Kihara as he slammed the door on Accelerators’ face, “And you!” He turned, looking at me angrily. “What the hell are you still doing here you little brat!?” The director shouted as he approached me at a furious pace.   
“You think you are here to sit on your ass all day!?”Taking out his anger on me, Kihara grabbed me by my shoulders and, in a rough manner, yanked me up my feet. “The exercises have already started you little brat, get moving!” Kihara ordered as he began dragging me violently.   
“Now then Kuro-chan…” Announced Kihara through the intercom, “We will now test the accuracy of your ability,” I was inside one of the exercise rooms. “All you have to do is teleport that little bag inside the target.” The director had angrily hauled me all the way from the rec-room to this place.  
The exercise room was a large squared chamber around ten meters in diameter. Its walls, roof, and floor were made out of some sort of metallic looking tiles. The room was all but empty except for a small table right next to me, which had a pile of sandbags on top of it.  
I was holding one of those bags in my hand, the little red thing, small and light enough that they would fit nicely in my palm. A couple meters in front of me there were several circles made out of a bluish light. Each of them was placed inside one another, the smaller circles inside the bigger ones, making a sort of bull’seye.   
My job was to teleport the bag as close to the tiny circle in the middle.   
I had never teleported successfully an object from that distance; usually my ability would lose accuracy the farther away I tried to place a teleported object. So if I tried to teleport something to a specific place that was farther than few feet away from me; most likely it would fail and end up somewhere else.  
“Well hurry up brat,” bellowed the director as he sensed my hesitance; “I don’t have all day!”  
I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter considering the position I was in. I did my best though, focusing on teleporting the bag as close to the circle as possible. To my relief it ended up close enough to the target, touching the outer edges of the first circle.   
I was pleased with my performance back then; it had been one of my best.   
“What the fuck was that, you shitty brat!?” Kihara on the other hand, wasn’t all that satisfied. “I said inside the target, INSIDE the target!” he repeated, shouting at the end with stronger emphasis. “Now try again!”  
I did as ordered and tried a second time, then a third; each time doing worse than before. Thanks in part to the angry shouts and insults coming out of the intercom every time I failed to live up to his expectations.  
“Well what are you waiting for you little bitch, teleport the damn thing?!” By the fifth attempt I wasn’t able to concentrate enough to even teleport the bag; the constant sneers and threats of Kihara making me too nervous.  
“I would, if you’d just shut up for a second!” I snapped back at him, looking angrily at the window that I knew Kihara and the others were watching.  
Kihara and two guards entered the room an instant later. “Oh I’m sorry Kuro-chan, was I being too hard on you?” He asked in an unusual calm manner as he walked right next to me.   
“You sassy little bitch!” growled Kihara as he suddenly smacked me hard on the face; knocking me to the floor. “Just who do you think you are talking too!?”  
Although I really wanted to answer back, to curse at that bastard; I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. Instead I glared daggers at him.  
“Oh how cute, Kuro-chan!” Kihara however couldn’t care less. “I’m glad to see you’re adapting nicely to this place.” as he began to mock me.  
Then with a sigh the director indifferently grabbed me by the hair and forced me up my feet; “I guess it was too much to ask for some competence from a brat like you.” before shoving me to the waiting guards. “So I guess we’ll start from step one.” Kihara stated as he walked away; the guards dragging me right behind him.  
“I’ve told you about these before, right Kuro-chan?” Kihara asked as the guards forced me to sit down on a leather chair; I had been led to the hall with the head masseurs, the guards on either side strapping my wrists and feet. “We usually use the masseurs as a sort of supplemental study.”   
“See those other students; they are like you; incompetent trash that failed to perform to our expectations.” around me were several other students sitting in similar head masseurs, all of them buckling in a pain that I would soon experience. “So we are helping them a bit.”  
Then my senses were taken away by the large helmet that covered my face. The screams around me were deafen, the lights on the roof gone; as I was enveloped in total darkness.  
Suddenly it began. My eyes were assaulted by ever changing flashes of light; the patterns and colors of which were constantly changing with every passing second. Meanwhile, through my ears reverberated a sound that switched between an intense high-pitch screech and a deep, low-pitch rumble.   
The pain was indescribable. The stimulation from the machine so intense that it felt like drills were piercing through my eyes and ears; and pounding at my brain. “Stop, stop, it hurts; please!” I begged frantically. I couldn’t take it after less than a minute.   
I fought desperately against my bindings as I whined and cried. But it was of no avail, no matter how much I struggled, the straps in my arms and legs would hold tight. And no matter how much I screamed or pleaded, I was ignored by the adults; just like the other students around me.  
And so, for what felt like forever, all I could do was thrash around as I cried helplessly; that infernal machine making my brain feel like it was being churned inside out as countless images and formulas were carved into my mind.   
“Wakey, wakey Kuro-chan…” That bastards’ voice came through the intercom; breaking my trance. Once again I was on one of the exercise rooms, it seemed like I had lost consciousness while sitting on the head masseur and was eventually carried here by the guards.  
“…time to start another test.” Kihara said in a mocking tone. The exercise room looked almost identical to the previous one; the main difference being the size, it was much bigger. “Since you were having so much trouble teleporting those dumb little bags, I’ve decided to get rid of them.”   
All of a sudden a large squared shaped object appeared on the middle of the room. The square was roughly four meters in diameter and seemed to be made out of a semi-transparent red light. “Instead we’re going to see just how well you can teleport yourself.”  
“But… I’m not supposed to teleport my own body yet.” I said nervously as I slowly got up. “Ah so you’ve been taught well, have you?” The director asked sardonically. “But don’t worry; this is just a test. That thing is just a hologram, so you won’t receive any serious injury if you screw up.”  
“So go on Kuro-chan, try your best.”I still hesitated even with his encouragement; I had learned to never trust the words of that man. “Then again maybe you’re not ready; maybe you need some more supplemental studies, hmmm?” The threat of those “supplemental studies” was all the encouragement I needed; I still wonder if the head masseurs were only there as a tool of intimidation.   
Since the square was semi transparent, at least I could visualize were I needed to teleport. Yet I still didn’t know how to do the proper calculations. So instead of appearing inside of the hologram as I intended, I ended up on the edge of the square; my left shoulder and leg just inside the hologram.  
Suddenly I felt a sharp, burning pain on the parts of my body that were touching the red light. I fell to the ground with a squeal as I jumped out of the hologram reflexively, the reaction of which was not unlike a hand that had touched a hot stove.   
“Like I said you won’t get seriously injured if you make a mistake…” Kihara began to clarify as the hologram vanished abruptly. “But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be painful at all.” The director continued to say mockingly. “After all, it’s important that you experience the repercussion of a botched teleportation.”  
Red marks had appeared on the parts of my body that had touched the square. Was that really just a hologram? Usually you wouldn’t feel anything by touching a normal hologram; and although I had heard that they could be programmed to make someone feel certain sensations; for it to actually leave a mark was completely unheard of.   
“Heads up Kuro-chan, here comes another one.” Kihara warned sarcastically as a large hologram appeared on the other side of the room. “You’ll have to teleport to the other side if you want to avoid that.” The hologram covered the whole room, from the floor all the way up to the roof. The large red wall of light steadily approached me.  
Luckily the hologram wasn’t moving too fast; giving me enough time to get my thoughts together and teleport to the other side just before it touched me. “Well done, but now’s not the time to celebrate.” Kihara said emptily before the whole room was filled with beams of red lights.  
I was completely surrounded by those red lights. Only where I was standing, and a few other patches in front of me, were the only spaces free of those beams. “Hurry Kuro-chan, they are getting clooooser.” The director snidely chirped as more and more beams appeared around me; slowly shrinking my free space and forcing me to teleport.   
But because of my own inexperience I ended up several meters off; countless beams hitting my body as I emerged. Like before I fell to the ground with a cry, and just like before the beams automatically disappeared; almost like it was on purpose.   
“From the sides Kuro-chan…” The director warned with a hiss. Before I could recover a couple walls of light had appeared from my front and left; the red holograms approaching me faster than the previous wall. Luckily I managed just in time; frantically teleporting out of their way.  
“Nice dodge kiddo, keep at it!” Kihara praised as more and more holograms appeared. I was chased relentlessly by those horrid red lights, the holograms forcing me to teleport all over the room. Sometimes walls of light would come at me and make me teleport this way and that. While at other times beams would surround me and limit my movement as I tried to avoid them.   
It felt like being pursued by a wild predator. One that, sooner or later, would always catch its prey; when that happened, a hot stinging pain would surge were my skin made contact; before disappearing along with the stalking holograms. And all the while the director just kept on shouting through the intercom, his derisive voice urging me to keep going as I was forced to prance around for that sadist.   
\---------------------------------   
The little shit was already there when I returned to our room late in the evening. She was lying face down on her bed, weeping quietly into her pillow. Glancing at her as I got closer, I noticed that her arms and legs were filled with red marks; looks like the pipsqueak had a pretty shitty day…  
I ignored her however and instead took out my notebook from the desk; before sitting down on my bed and writing calculation formulas. But as I worked silently on my notebook, I grew increasingly irritated listening to her sobs.   
I wondered why that was; it wasn’t like the pipsqueak was crying unbearably loud like before, she was barely making a sound. So why was I so fucking pissed?   
Maybe because I knew from experience what was gonna happen to her. Most likely Kihara and the others would exploit her until she was completely broken. Then after they were done, they would get rid of her like she was trash; just like many others before her.  
The thought of that annoying girl being discarded like a broken doll pissed me even further. So much so that after just a couple of minutes of silently listening to her muffled cries, I snapped. My right fist angrily punching the wall next to me as the whole room shook violently.   
“When the fuck are you going to stop crying?” I asked with a bitter hiss, my eyes looking at her impatiently.   
“Didn’t I tell you this before?” I asked sternly while the pipsqueak looked on fearfully. “If you want to survive then become stronger..! Strong enough that they’ll leave you alone,” I told her through self experience. “Strong enough to shut those bastards up!”   
“Become stronger..? Don’t mess with me!” The girl angrily blurted out in response. “That’s easy for you to say because you’re a level 5!”   
“You think that I haven’t tried to improve on my teleportation?” she cried loudly, discharging all her pent up frustration. “I’ve been working on it ever since I got to Academy City!”   
“But because teleportation is so rare, and so hard to understand,” The pipsqueak used as an excuse as she placed her hands in her eyes and continued crying. “All the teachers have been able to do is teach me how to barely control it, much less use it corr-”   
“Oh cry me a fucking river!” I interrupted impatiently. “You think anyone here gives a shit about your little sob story?”  
“Are you deaf you little shit?” I continued as my right hand dug deeply into the crack on the wall I had just made, “This place is going to swallow you whole unless you change yourself.” The concrete wall giving way to my thrusting hand like it was made out of jelly.  
“If you can’t do that then you’re as good as dead.” I told her as a small slab of concrete fell onto my bed.   
“Now grab this and teleport it next to the door.” I ordered, picking that chunk and throwing it right next to her.   
“But…”  
“Just do as I say; truth is I’m sick and tired of your pathetic whining!” I interrupted angrily once again. “If you are too weak to even try. Then I guess I’ll just have to save us both the trouble and kill you right here and now.”   
My threat worked as the hesitant girl did as told and took the chunk of concrete into her hand; knowing full well that any excuse would just backfire.   
“Take your time and concentrate.” I said in a softer tone, trying to calm her nerves so that she could use her powers effectively.  
A few moments later that piece emerged on the other side of the room. It didn’t appear next to the door however, ending up on the left corner of the room instead.   
“It’s like I’ve been trying to say!” The brat whined in frustration. “If I try to teleport something too far, it’ll always appear on the wrong place!” The way the brat cried as she tried to explain, reminding me of the cries and whines of an exploited farm animal, one that couldn’t bear his masters’ unreasonable demands.   
It was probably all Kihara’s doing. That bastard most likely abused the pipsqueak every time she made a mistake or didn’t perform to his expectations. So now she was afraid that I would do the same.  
“So your teleportation gets all screwed up whenever you do it too far, huh?” I mused, the girl nodding back in return. “Then what about teleporting things nearby, can you do that without a hitch?” I asked, remembering yesterday when she had teleported my coffee can.  
“I guess so…” The girl muttered unsurely as she began to calm down and wondered about my question.   
“I see… then get up and try using your powers on that.” I said while pointing at her bed.   
“Teleport the bed; you’ve got to be kidding!?” The brat asked in disbelief when she saw where I was pointing.  
“I’m not telling you to teleport the bed somewhere else, just redirect its position.”   
“Redirect its position?” She asked in confusion, not quite understanding what I meant.   
“Yeah, teleport the bed on the same place; only try flipping it upside down.” I clarified with a sigh, “Just give it a try, you should be able to do it.”  
The brat got up and did as suggested, placing her right hand on the corner of the bed. To her surprise the bed crashed loudly on the floor, emerging on the same place; only this time its position was completely inverted.  
“Yah see pipsqueak,” I said with a satisfied smirk. “Now with a touch of a finger, you can take down any bastard who crosses your path.”   
“Now then…” I mused as I grabbed my calculation notebook. “The reason your teleportation works without a hitch from close range is because of your AIM field.” I continued while scribbling down.  
“Normally you’d need to use N-dimensional formulas to even begin using teleportation.”I explained, the pipsqueak just staring at me with that dumb puzzled look on her face. “Luckily, you seem to be able to do them unconsciously.”   
“However if you are going to teleport something more than a few feet away, you need to use the right coordinate formulas.” I turned my notebook towards her and showed her the formula I had just written.  
“Um… ok but what’s that?” The kid asked, pointing at my note book.  
“That’s a mathematical formula.”   
“So, it’s some kind of math?” She asked confusedly.   
“Yeah, sort of…”  
“Then why does it have letters on it?”   
I just kept staring at the little dumbass for a moment. “This is gonna take a while…” I sighed in exasperation.  
The next couple of hours were pretty frustrating ones. From Summations to variables, from my calculation tricks to applicable ways of using the formulas; I tried my best to explain things to the little shit in the simplest of manners.   
At times, it seemed like we were making some progress. For example there had been a few times, and after taking a long time calculating things, that the pipsqueak had managed to teleport objects fairly accurately. But those were few and far between; mostly she just kept screwing up even when I practically told her how; it felt like we were going around in circles.   
“No you stupid brat, how many times do I have to tell you!?” I told her frustratingly as she once again forgot how to use the square trick. “All you have to do is just subtract’em to twenty five and then just find the square of what remains!” We were sitting on the floor right between our beds.   
“Ok, ok, fine I got it.” The girl muttered tiredly as she wrote down that part of the formula on the notebook. Looking at her it was obvious that she was too tired to really ‘get it’ and was just writing down mechanically what I told her to.  
“Meh, fuck it let’s take a break.” I groaned wearily. “We’d get nowhere in the state you are in anyway.” To be honest we had done a lot of progress, considering that she was a brat that barely knew the basics when we started.  
With a sigh of relief, the pipsqueak dropped unceremoniously on the floor; seems like she was even more exhausted than I thought. I instead I got up from the floor and went to my bed to rest.   
“Hey aniki how about we play a game?” She suggested after passing a few minutes in silence, it seemed like the pipsqueak wasn’t that tired after all.  
“Play a game?” I snorted in disbelief, just who the hell did she think I was?  
“Well yeah, you know… maybe that can help us clear our heads.” The brat used as a lame excuse.  
“And what exactly do you wanna play?” I said hesitantly with an exasperated sigh. I didn’t know why I agreed; maybe I was just that bored, or maybe I just felt bad for her and wanted to humor her just this once.  
“Hmmm… how about hangman, we have a pencil and paper after all?” She asked tentatively as she grabbed the notebook and pencil.  
“Fine…” I said with a groan, I was already regretting my decision. “But I go first.” I said as I took the notebook from her hands and began drawing the lines.  
The next few minutes the pipsqueak tried to figure out the word without much success. She was barely halfway through and the diagram was almost complete; the progress she had on the word looking like this: TRO_ _O_ _TE.   
“It must be a real word, you know.” She said with an annoyed look on her face.  
“It’s a real word you dumbass!” I angrily retorted. “Now hurry up and guess, I don’t have all night.” We were again sitting in the floor playing that asinine game.   
“M...?” After a few more moments of frustrating thought, the brat finally asked.   
“Nope, you lose!” I said as I wrote the last leg of the hangman figurine and began to laugh victoriously.   
“Oh yeah, well what’s the word then?” She questioned suspiciously.  
“It’s troglodyte.” I answered; I knew that the brat wouldn’t be able to figure out if I used a complex word like that.  
“What, you cheater, that isn’t a real word!” The brat angrily shouted as she pointed at me in an accusatory way.   
“Sure it is; the troglodytes were our retarded, gorilla-like cavemen cousins.” I answered the pipsqueak with a cocky smile. “You remind me of them, actually.” I teased cruelly.  
The pipsqueak angrily pouted at me for a moment. “Fine, now it’s my turn.” she said before ripping the notebook out of my hand.  
She quickly drew the lines and diagram. “Ok, it’s ready.” She said with an annoyed tone, it was obvious that she was trying to get back at me. I played along however and said: “A?” which I got correctly, the word appearing: _A_ _A_ _.  
The next two tries where misses but my third, the letter S, was correct, the word now appearing as: _A_ _ASS. It was pretty clear what the word was already.  
“Jackass…” did she really think that a lame insult like that would bother me.  
“That’s right, and you know what jackass means?” she asked eagerly, her tone still fairly irritated.   
“Yeah…” I answered indifferently as I just ignored her silly retort and went back to my bed.  
“Well you remind me of one.” She said with a smirk, the brat probably thought that she was being really clever.  
“Oh, you got me there.” I said sarcastically. “Anyway, I’ve had enough of this retarded game, so I’m gonna call it a day.” I continued while turning off the lights.  
“What already?” She said disappointingly. “Let’s play something else then, how about I spy?”  
“Forget it brat I’m tired!”  
“Come on, just one more!” The pipsqueak continued to beg, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to stop unless I agreed.  
“Argh, Just once and I choose!” I said with a growl, knowing that playing along would be faster. “I spy something beginning with B.” I phrased quickly, not really thinking of anything in particular.   
“…bed?” asked the pipsqueak after a moment of thought.   
“Yep that’s right, you win.” I lied. “Ok then, let’s go to sleep now.” I had planned to finish this as quickly as possible by letting her win with her first try.  
“Hey, you lied!” but after a few minutes of silence the pipsqueak had realized. “You didn’t even think of anything, did you!?”  
“Yes I did…”   
“No you didn’t!” she said accusatorily. “You just said a random letter and then just agreed to whatever I guessed!” It seemed like the pipsqueak wasn’t as dumb as I had thought.  
I remained silent however, hoping that she would drop it and go to sleep. “Let’s play something else.”  
“So you wanna play something else, huh?” I said coolly, even though I had just about enough of her crap. “Okay, then let’s play accelerated.”  
“Accelerated, how do you play that?”   
“Oh it’s real simple; the first person to talk GETS FUCKING ACCELERATED; NOW SHUT UP!” I shouted, snapping angrily at the little shit.  
That was finally enough for her to stop pestering me for the night, leaving me alone for the next ten to fifteen minutes. But just when I was about to fall asleep, I felt the bed shifting; the feeling of something warm coming to rest right next to me. It was the pipsqueak; she had the nerve to climb unto my bed.  
But just as I was going to kick her out, “Mother…” I heard the pipsqueak’s whisper.  
\-----------------------------------------------   
It had actually worked! This room, this awfully cold and gloomy room, wouldn’t let me sleep. So much so, that after some deliberation I had decided to sneak into aniki’s bed, hoping that I wouldn’t feel as cold if I did.   
I waited several more minutes for aniki to fall asleep, and then crept slowly unto his bed. But I had barely gotten comfortable when he found out, turning around to most likely kick me out.   
That’s when I used my backup plan, whispering in my best ‘sad little girl’ tone, as I pretended to be half-asleep. To my surprise aniki relented, his hand stopping just as it was about to shove me out.   
I was almost laughing inside. I couldn’t believe that he had fallen for such a lame act. But then I felt it. His hand instead of pushing me began to move slightly over my face, almost like it was caressing me, before wrapping itself around me.  
I blushed instantly at his embrace. I had wanted to sleep close to aniki so that I wouldn’t feel as cold. But not that close! I couldn’t do anything however, so I just accepted it and went to sleep. At least, for the first time, I felt warmth in this place.


	4. An Intermission

We got up the next morning almost at the same time. Aniki’s shifting as he awoke; waking me as well. With a big yawn I slowly sat up, it felt like I had slept on forever. Sitting right next to me was Accelerator; his mind still half asleep as he drowsily scratched his unkempt hair.  
For a moment we stared at each other; an awkward silence filling the room until aniki decided to suddenly shove me out of his bed.   
“Ow, what the hell is your problem!?” I asked angrily, turning around to give aniki an angry pout.  
“Whatever…” groaned aniki indifferently as he got up from his bed. “Let’s just go get something to eat.” He continued as he went to the door and opened it.  
I followed right behind aniki as we left the room. As other times before, the students we passed were giving us weird looks, avoiding us as we walked through the hallways and into the mess hall.  
“Tch, you don’t have to stick with me all day, you know.” Aniki said with an irritated scowl, seems like the stares of the others were getting to him. “Your friends should be ‘round here; why don’t you go to them?”  
“Didn’t you say that we’d go and eat something together?” I questioned as we cut through the line of waiting students. “So why are you acting this way now?” I continued as I grabbed the eating tray and was handed out my food.  
“No you heard me wrong, pipsqueak. And besides…” Aniki trailed off, glancing at me annoyingly through the corner of his eye. “Aren’t you following me just so you can cut in line?” It was just Accelerator and me who were getting served, the other students not daring to even get close.   
“Aha ha, it’s not the only reason.” I admitted with a lame grin; aniki however, just ignored me as he went to sit on a table.   
“Hey wait for me!” I quickly tried to follow along as I saw the upset glares that the students behind me were giving, most likely because of my opportunism.   
“Argh, you got what you wanted so why don’t you take a hike already?” grumbled aniki as I sat next to him.   
“Don’t be like that aniki!” I exclaimed, frustrated at his continued unsociable demeanor. “I’m eating with you because I want to; not because it’s convenient for me!”  
“Fine…” Aniki muttered; it appeared like my whining had mellowed him out a bit.   
“You know aniki,” I said after a few minutes of relative silence. “Is there a way to get better food?” I inquired while tasting my bland, insipid meal. “I remember Mugino eating a bento yesterday.”  
“The hell do I know; they probably serve that ojou-san some bento to keep her happy.” Aniki replied indifferently as he ate. “It’s not that rare for those dickheads to give in to our demands; Helps them keep the order.”   
“Why don’t you ask for better food then?” I suggested tentatively.   
“Not interested.” Aniki stated bluntly.  
“What, why..?” I Asked, surprised at anikis’ indifference. “Aren’t you tired of eating the same damn thing!?” I continued in frustration.  
Aniki in return gave me an annoyed frown. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re just saying this shit just so you can eat it yourself?”  
“O-of course not aniki,” I stammered at being found out. “I wouldn’t dare to try that after how mad you got the other day.”  
“Oh really…” remarked aniki in sarcastic disbelief, “And I bet you won’t start with your crocodile tears either, right?” He continued with an ironic smirk.  
“Yes, yes, really.” I answered dismissively as I waved my hand back and forth. “Anyway I was just worried about you; there’s no need to get so cynical.”  
For the rest of the meal, I tried without much success to keep a conversation with aniki, and even though he wasn’t as hostile or cranky as the days before, he was still his usual aloof, taciturn self; giving short yes or no answers and a couple of snarky remarks as we finished eating.   
Afterwards, as usual, aniki headed to the rec-room. And aniki, as usual, went directly for the couch next to the TV. I on the other hand, followed behind more tepidly. Truth be told, I was tired of doing the same thing over and over. But as we passed through the room I saw an unused air hockey table on the left side of the room.   
“Aniki..!” I shouted excitedly, hugging Aniki’s left arm. “Let’s play some air hockey!” I continued as I pulled on his arm eagerly; I loved playing that game.  
“What the hell you little shit; you wanna die!?” Aniki asked angrily as he tried to wrest his arm from my grasp; the crowd around us looking on in amused bewilderment.   
“Oh come on aniki, all we do is watch TV!” I insisted as I kept pulling on aniki’s hand. “Let’s do something else for a change!”   
“Fuck off shit head!” Aniki cursed as he stood his ground, a short tug of war ensuing between the two of us. “Go find someone else!”   
“Please aniki; I haven’t played that game for so long!” I begged with my best ‘puppy eyes’ look that I could muster.   
“Godammit!” With a snap, aniki finally managed to shove me out of his arm. But instead of going to the couch, Accelerator stomped furiously towards the right side of the hockey table.   
“Just for that, you’re gonna get your ass kicked!” He continued irritably while grabbing the puck and mallet.  
“Ha ha ha, you can try aniki,” I laughed cheerfully as I took the mallet on the opposite side of the table. “But I’m pretty go-” before I could finish the puck had already entered through my goal.   
“Hey, no fair..!” I whined as I recovered the puck from its return mechanism. “I wasn’t ready that time!” I used as an excuse before I hit the disk with all my strength.  
But a moment later the puck had again passed through my goalie; flashing through the table so fast that I could barely even see it, much less react to it. This happened over and over; every time aniki would hit the puck it would rocket out relentlessly towards my goal, which I was unable to even follow with my eyes.  
It wasn’t until the fifth time that I managed to stop his onslaught. And only because, just after hitting the puck, I placed the mallet next to the slot and began to move it left and right as quickly as I could. This resulted in the disk bouncing off my mallet and unto the other side.  
Aniki didn’t miss a beat however, smacking the puck as it approached; making it ricochet all around the table uncontrollably. For the next fifteen seconds or so, I tried desperately to intercept the furiously moving disk. But it was useless, I couldn’t even touch it.   
It wasn’t until aniki calmly placed his mallet right on the center of his corner that the puck rebounded with it and once again went through my goal. It was now obvious what was happening. It wasn’t like he had followed the puck with his eye and by reflex managed to hit the disk. No, he had leisurely placed the mallet like it was nothing; like he knew that it was going to be there at that exact moment.  
“You cheat!” I accused indignantly while I pointed at him. “You are using your powers to control the pucks’ speed!” I continued with an annoyed frown.  
“No shit, Sherlock!” Aniki mocked sarcastically. “And so what; If you’ve got a problem then try using your teleportation.” He taunted with a smirk.  
“Alright then aniki, if that’s how you want to play.” I grumbled as I retrieved the puck and focused on aniki’s goal, trying to remember what I had learned yesterday.  
A moment later the puck warped into the other side of the table; I had tried to teleport the disk as close to the goal as possible. However I was off by almost half a meter, appearing above the table right in front of aniki.   
“You fucked up the vertical calculations pipsqueak;” Stated aniki, lightly rapping the puck with one of his knuckles, before it shot straight unto my goal once more. “Try again.”  
I silently grabbed the disk and tried to concentrate further on my calculations, taking my time in teleporting it. For several seconds I used all the calculation shortcuts that I was taught, adding to my teleportation the result of multiplying both the vertical and horizontal vectors and then converting them to the power of the eleventh.  
“Need a pen and paper?” Teased aniki with that cocky smirk of his, hearing me mumble under my breath the calculations that I was making.   
“Oh shut up!” I retorted in frustration before once again teleporting the puck. This time however the disk had emerged too far to the left, just outside the edge of the table.   
“Now your horizontal ones are off.” Aniki instructed as he reached out for the puck and tapped it with his finger, the disk as always shooting through my goal.  
Attempt after attempt; I tried eagerly to teleport the disk into the slot. And I was getting closer; thanks to trial and error, the calculations were becoming a little easier to do. The puck emerging each time more accurately until finally, in my sixth attempt, it emerged inside aniki’s goal.  
“‘Bout time brat.” mocked aniki, his tone almost sounding pleased even though he tried to hide it with his usual snide. “And here I thought it be a complete wipeout.” Accelerator continued, retrieving the puck before hitting it and a quick exchange resulted in him scoring as always.  
“Come on pipsqueak, it’s that all you’ve got!?” Aniki taunted, trying his best to egg me on.   
“No it’s not, now try and redirect this!” I said before using my teleportation to warp the puck inside the goal.   
For the next several minutes we kept going back and forth, anikis’ usual smirk almost turning into an actual smile.  
“Well you look at that, Number one and his little friend are playing a game!” But when aniki heard an approaching students’ comment, his smile disappeared. “How fucking adorable!” It was the student that had talked with Mugino before, the one called Kakine.  
“The fuck you want, you second rate punk?” Aniki asked as he angrily smacked the puck, his attitude growing fouler even though he kept playing.  
“Nothing much, I just find it funny.” Kakine answered as he leaned on the hockey table and began to sneer at aniki. “The terrible Accelerator playing with a little girl… It’s so ridiculously hilarious that it’s downright disgusting.”   
“Bah, I’m just doing it out of my own convenience.” Aniki spat dismissively.   
“Oh..?” Kakine retorted in sarcasm.   
“I wouldn’t expect a classless mongrel like you to understand,” aniki explained indifferently as he kept playing. “But if that brat develops her power, she can help me figure something out.”   
“And since that dumbass Kihara was doing such a shitty job with her, that I just had to intervene before he ruined it;” Aniki used as excuse, though even I didn’t believe it. “There’s nothing more to that.”  
“So you’re just using her then?” Kakine asked impatiently. “You really think I’m gonna buy that bullshit?”  
“Tell me something then.” Kakine continued as he approached aniki. “Why didn’t she break her arm when she grabbed you back then?”   
“Or what about yesterday when she glomped on you in the couch..?” By now the two of them were glaring at each other. “Shouldn’t your reflect have snapped her neck?”   
“Tch, and what’s it to you, fag?” Aniki asked irately, trying his best to change the subject. “Is that what you do all day, just follow my ass around and see what I’m up to?”   
“No, it’s just I’m wondering…” Kakine mused with that smarmy look on his face. “If all it takes is some little girl to whip you around then maybe you’re not suited to be number one after all.”  
“Then why don’t you try glomping on me then?” Aniki taunted sarcastically. “See if it won’t break your neck.” He continued, leaving his place at the hockey table to instead turn and face his adversary. “What are you waiting for, come at me.”   
The atmosphere on the rec-room was growing tenser by the second; so much so that I was scared that they would go at each other’s throats at any moment. And worst there was nobody around stop them. Since, as I looked around, the whole room was empty except for the three of us; so if they decided to fight I would be caught in the middle of two of the most dangerous espers.   
“All in its due time, Accelerator…” Kakine said as he, thankfully, backed down and began to leave. “Besides the exercises are about to begin.”   
“But when I do crush you it’ll be in front of the higher-ups,” However when he opened the door he turned to glare at aniki. “Just so they know who’s truly deserving of the level six program.” He hissed before finally leaving.  
“Um, aniki..?” I asked anxiously; the remaining edginess in aniki making me a bit nervous in return.   
“It’s nothing, pipsqueak.” Aniki said, mellowing out a bit as now he himself headed for the door. “Anyway let’s go to the exercises before that bastard Kihara shows up.”  
“Okay…” I whispered hesitantly, I was still scared of going back to that place.   
“Just remember what I taught you and you’ll be fine.” Aniki tried to reassure me as he looked back and saw my downtrodden face.  
Hearing his words, I mustered all my courage and followed along; wondering if he had agreed to play with me, just so he could prepare me for the exercises to come.  
\---------------------------------------------------  
“Director, The student’s exercise you ordered has begun.” I was resting in my office when an underlings’ message blasted through the intercom.   
“Good, send it over here.” I ordered as I poured myself a shot of whiskey. The room completely obscured until I pressed a button and a LCD screen emerged from the table’s board.  
Then after lying down and placing my feet on the side of the table; I began to watch the brat practicing her teleportation. It had all worked better than expected; how ironic that a Kuro-chan would end up being both the cause and the solution for this little problem of mine.   
Yah see it had all started with that little cunt Kuroyoru. The previous Kuro-chan, that devious, little bitch, just had to go berserk and kill all those researchers. So now the city directors and the other investors were backing down like the pussies that they were; at this rate this place would close in little over a month.  
And that was fine by me; I had done enough to be noticed by the superintendant. From developing faster training tools to developing the espers’ power, from creating the personally reality adapters to actually finding where those were located in the brain, I had even found some loopholes in that little bastard’s defense.   
All except testing an actual teleporter. I’d always wanted to screw around with one; there were still a lot of unknowns in the scientific community on the way that teleportation and the eleven dimensions worked.   
However, since teleporters were so rare; and the experiments that I wanted to try were so dangerous, that I had never managed to procure one. And after that accident, I thought that I never would.   
So imagine my delight when I was told that they found Kuroko, the new Kuro-chan. With her I could finally test the eleven dimensions of teleportation by having them crash against that little bastard’s vectors; and if anything happened, and push came to shove, I could just dissect her brain and see how a teleporters’ personal reality worked.   
However, I had one problem left to solve. Like I said before this place was quickly running out of time. So developing the abilities of Kuro-chan, who was so young and inexperienced, would be almost impossible by normal means.  
The amount of time I had was just too limited, even if I placed her on the masseurs’ twenty four-seven it wouldn’t have been enough. That was easily solved though by making the runt teach her his calculation methods.   
I knew that if I threw the brat with him, Accelerator would warm up to her in a few days. And I knew that if I roughed her up a bit, that little bastard would predictably help her out.  
As I drank in satisfaction, I saw that she was teleporting much better than the day before. At this rate it wouldn’t be long until she was ready for the experiment. Now all I had to do was wait for the right time.

After quickly finishing my exercises, I had gone back to my couch on the rec-room to take a nap.   
“Aniiiiki~`.” Or at least I was trying to until the pipsqueaks’ creaky, obnoxious; chirping woke me up.   
“The hell you want?” I asked irritably as I glared straight up from the couch, that little shits’ face covering most of my field of vision.  
“Can you please move to the side?” She continued with her fake, ridiculous smile. “I want to watch a movie.”  
With an exasperated groan, I began to wriggle lazily through the couch; dragging myself to the right corner. But just when the pipsqueak sat next to me, I noticed there was somebody else with her; it was that knockoff!   
“Hey wait a sec… the fuck is she doing here!?” I demanded hostilely; glowering at the knock off that had just sat on the other side of the couch.  
“What, Saiai said she wanted to see this movie.” The pipsqueak intervened; placing her face between my intimidating glare, and the knock off, who was scowling back at me coolly. “So I thought we could watch it together.” She continued with a friendly smile, trying her best to ease up the tension around us.   
“Of course, if you don’t want too, we can always watch my show instead.” She chirped; her smile turning into mischievous grin. “I mean, the the Passions of the Law is on right now.” The little shit probably knew just how much I hated that crap.  
“Tch, fine…” I sighted, clicking my tongue in annoyed resignation. Maybe the movie wouldn’t be that bad. But of course, as the film began, I remembered one little fact about the knock off; her tastes in movies sucked.   
“What the fuck is this shit?” The film was nothing more than low budgeted, cult, horror movie. The plot was laughably bad, its special effects were simply ridiculous; and the characters were just trite as fuck.  
“Really is that supposed to be scary?” Even worst, the film director knew shit about fear; just a retard that used a bunch of shitty gotcha moments with no atmosphere or suspense to them. The whole thing so retarded that only a little kid would ever find this scary.   
“EEEEK!!!” But then I remembered that I was seated next to pair of brats. So when a cat suddenly jumped out of nowhere; the little shit promptly jumped and squealed before grabbing my arm.  
“Eeek…” I derided sarcastically before shoving her back to her side of the couch.   
At least I found some amusement in the cheesiness of it all.   
“KYAAA!!” Each time the pipsqueak jolted in shock.   
“Aaah..!” I would tease her by jolting in a lame, mocking way a few seconds later.   
“Wait; don’t super go to the bathroom!” Afterwards when I saw the girls holding each other out in fear, I began to shake the couch with my vectors, “Stop it you jerk!” much to their consternation.   
“Hurry, get out of there!” But to be fair, when the killer finally began to slash up his victims, the movie actually got a bit entertaining. “Yeah bitch, run or you’ll get gutted like a pig!” I cackled cruelly.  
At least the movie had some decent kills, “Kyahahahahaha!!” the goriness of it all giving me a sort of sadistic glee as I kept laughing maniacally throughout the last half hour of the film.   
“See aniki; the movie ain’t so bad, right?” the pipsqueak asked as she kept a tight grip on my arm.   
“Maybe; I guess it is a pretty cute, feel good movie.” I answered sardonically.  
“…multiply the distance with the horizontal and vertical vectors.” I stated, writing down the calculations on anikis’ notebook. “Then add to it the weight of the object.” We had gone back to our room after the movie.  
“Finally, I convert it to the power of the eleventh;” I was on the floor practicing my teleportation. Aniki looking boringly as he sat right next to me. “And…”   
To my delight, after I finished using the calculation shortcuts, I teleported the pebble almost perfectly on target.   
“Yes I did it!” I jumped elatedly; I was getting the hang of it.  
“Nice one, now do it over there.” Aniki said aloofly, pointing with his thumb to the other side of the wall.  
With a nod I turned to where aniki was pointing. After calculating the coordinates a few moments later the small chunk of concrete once again emerged where I wanted it too.   
“Ahahahahaha!” I laughed excitedly, jumping and running all over the room.   
“Oy pipsqueak, settle down.” Aniki ordered, trying to calm me down; even though I wasn’t really listening.   
I had finally done it! I had taken control of this power; the same power that nearly killed my father, the power that had driven away my family and sent me to this place.   
“Look aniki, I’m teleporting without a hitch!” In my elation, I eagerly grabbed the remaining pebbles and began teleporting them all over the room. Next to the door: Horizontal 13.8, vertical 8.447852, distance 35.5; on top of the table: horizontal 9.231, verticals 15.0021, distance 6.25; above the window: horizontal 12.85, vertical 23.90, distance 14… before I knew it; I had run out of pebbles.   
“Yeah, yeah, just don’t get carried away you little shit!” Aniki, on the other hand, was growing increasingly annoyed with my wild behavior.  
That didn’t stop me however, grabbing the notebook and pen and teleporting it next to aniki. Smiling happily at him when I did, hoping for his approval.   
“Had enough, pipsqueak?” He asked in return, glaring at me exasperatedly.  
“Almost, let me try, one; last… thing!” I said while calculating the coordinates to appear high above my bed; my exhilaration taking the better of me as I teleported myself.  
“Wait!” Yelled aniki at the last second, realizing what I was planning to do. But it was too late, I misfired. Instead of falling down safely on my bed, as I had intended, I emerged on some kind of dark hole.  
“Help, I’m stuck!” I cried desperately for help. The place was so dark and cramped that I could barely even see or move; the only clue as to where I was being the cold breeze passing through me.   
“Don’t move a fucking inch you little shit!” Just when I was about to try and find a way out, I heard aniki’s voice right beneath me. “I’ll get you out just stay perfectly still.” I did as told and remained frozen in place, aniki’s harsh yet desperate tone compelling me to oblige.  
A moment later the whole place began to shake violently; the ground or whatever I was resting on, collapsing as I fell butt first into my bed. I was back on my room. Looking up towards where I had just been, I saw a huge hole on the roof; it seems like I had teleported inside our bedrooms’ air duct.  
“You dumbass..!” However, before I could even get my bearings completely, aniki reprimanded me by smacking me in the head. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that you shouldn’t teleport yourself unless you can do it perfectly!?”   
“But the director and the others didn’t mind;” I used as an excuse; rubbing my head and looking up at aniki all teary-eyed. “They even made me practice it on the exercise rooms.”   
“Kihara is an asshole, you idiot!” aniki retorted quickly. “You should know by now that he doesn’t give a fuck what happens as long as he gets what he wants.”   
“Listen pipsqueak, there’s a reason that self-teleportation is restricted in the first place.” Aniki sighted as he began to explain more calmly. “For example, say that you missteleport and your arm end’s up inside a wall; what then?”   
“Well the teleported object will push out the other one, right?” I asked, trying to remember what I was taught on my previous school.   
“Wrong, that might be the case with inanimate objects; but a human body is different.” Aniki answered sternly, his tone all dead serious as he tried to emphasize his point.   
“While I don’t know the specifics, supposedly you can really hurt yourself if that happened; you could even lose an arm or a leg.” Hearing his words, I began to shudder; I couldn’t believe that something like that could happen.   
“So you better not teleport yourself again, pipsqueak; if I ever see you do it without my permission; I swear I’ll kick your ass!” I merely nodded back in return. In spite of Anikis’ threat as he gave me one of his glares; for some reason, I was feeling sort of happy deep inside.  
“Good, now that’s that; let’s go to sleep.” Aniki said dismissively as he turned off the lights and went to his bed. “I’ve had enough bullshit for the day.”  
After thinking for few more moments I began to creep slowly towards aniki. “The fuck are you doing you little shit, go back to your bed!?” Aniki shouted when he felt me rest right next to him.  
“But this place is too cold to sleep on my own.” I whined in my best sad little girl tone. “Besides, my bed is full of rubble after you broke the air-duct.”   
“Tch, just be thankful that I didn’t leave you there.” Aniki spat exasperatedly, turning his back on me and moving slightly to the side. “Now go to sleep and don’t fucking bother me again for the night or I’ll kick you out.”


	5. Fun at the Beach

[If you like Piña Coladas] The sun was shining brightly. [And getting caught in the rain] light cerulean blue covering the sky. [If you're not into yoga] The blowing sea breezes keeping me cool from the lukewarm rays that enveloped my body. [If you have half a brain]   
Everything was pretty serene to say the least. [If you'd like making love at midnight] The crashing waves and the singing seagulls, [In the dunes on the Cape] combining to create a nice, soothing atmosphere. [Then I'm the love that you've looked for] I was with Mugino and Saiai on the beach, [Write to me and escape.] the three of us resting together on reclining chairs as we sunbathed.  
“Kuroko, be a dear and turn the music down.” Mugino requested, her hands holding a tanning mirror as she laid down on the second chair adjacent to me.  
Annoyed that she had woken me from my daydream, I let out an exasperated sigh. “Sure…” reaching out for the control and lowering the volume.   
Shortly after, one of the waiters approached with a new batch of drinks, “Here you go ladies.” these being, quite fittingly, Piña Coladas.  
Of course it would have been more accurate to say that the “waiter” was one of Muginos’ underlings. Apparently Mugino allowed a number of them into her gang as servants and in return they received her protection.   
“Thanks cutie pie.” Saiai said with a playful smile, winking at the waiter as she took the drink.   
Meanwhile Mugino lowered the chair and turned around so that she was now lying face down. “Toriko, get your ass over here and rub some suntan lotion on my back.” Unstrapping the bikini top from behind and exposing her upper backside.   
I looked on with annoyance as the underling quickly dropped the tray and went next to Mugino, applying some lotion into his hands before rubbing it all over her back. His eagerness causing me wonder if there was something else between them.  
To be honest I was both a bit irritated and jealous at that moment. Unlike Saiai and Mugino, who were flirting and teasing the waiters with their sexy bikinis; I was wearing a very childish and conservative one piece swimsuit.  
It wasn’t because of personal choice though; you see earlier today I had managed to coax aniki into coming with me to the beach. And it had taken quite a bit of work too. At first all of my attempts had failed miserably, suggestions that the sun might do aniki some good only pissing him off. Even my sad little girl act didn’t work.   
But then I told him that maybe he shouldn’t go after all, that the beach was Mugino’s territory, so it was understandable if he was afraid of facing her ire. That suggestion finally did the trick…   
“Can you hurry it up, you little shit!?” He said leaning next to the booth with his hands crossed. “You pestered me all fucking day to come with you, so the least you could do is not keep me waiting!”  
We were in the changing room, the whole place filled with rows and rows of swimsuits, most of these being bikinis although there were several one pieces and a few male swimsuits here and there. Aniki himself was wearing one of these as he waited; a green shorts swimsuit and a grey beach hoodie.   
“Hold your horses, aniki.” I answered nonchalantly. By now I had gotten so used to aniki’s crappy attitude that it didn’t bother me one bit, dismissing his snarky remarks and grouchy grumbles with a calm reply or two. “I’m almost done; it’s just that I want to make sure that I’ve got the swimsuit on just right.”  
After a few more moments of inspecting my swimsuit, I was ready. Sliding the drapes to the side and emerging from the changing booth that was on the west side of the room. “Well, how do I look?” twirling around and showing off my small black bikini.  
Aniki reacted with a lame grimace however, “You look disgusting!” Giving me a small karate head chop. “What are you some slut, wear something more age appropriate!” He continued as he stamped off to get another swimsuit.  
“Huh, what’s the problem aniki?” I said, a bit disappointed at anikis’ negative reaction.  
“Feh, what do yah think!?” he said in a sarcastic tone, browsing quickly around for another swimsuit. “Really you little shit; just what the hell are those women putting into your head?” A moment later he approached with another swimsuit on hand. “Here wear this one.”   
“What, No!” I whined. Looking at the suit that aniki gave me, a kiddy one piece that had some silly frogs drawn into it. “I’m not wearing such a lam-!” 

“Godammit pipsqueak, aren’t you my underling?” Aniki interrupted before pushing me back into the booth. “Then do what your aniki tells you and go change!” He continued with a glare; the harsh tone of his voice masking the hint of a desperate plea underneath.  
I stared dumbfounded at aniki for a moment. “Fine…” I muttered before closing the drapes and changing. Not because I was afraid of his tone, quite the opposite, I was sort of happy at that moment.  
However things got worse when we got to the beach. Even though they tried to hide it, there was unspoken tension between aniki, Mugino and Saiai. 

Quickly I grabbed aniki by the hand and started dragging him along. “Come on aniki lets go for a swim!” I said with fake excitement, doing my best to ease up the mood.  
“So what do you wanna do aniki?” I asked cheerfully when we got into the water. “Ooh, how about we race to the other side!?”  
“Do that if yah want, pipsqueak.” said aniki as he began to float in the water. “But I’m staying here.”   
“Why I am not surprised…” I grumbled in disappointment. “Can’t you do something else besides lie around?” giving him an annoyed frown.  
“Fuck off…”  
“I know.” I whispered with a mischievous smile. “Let’s, have…” I continued while withdrawing my arms back into the water, “A water fight!” before splashing some water on aniki’s face.  
Aniki barely reacted at first; he merely stopped floating and got on his feet. “Big mistake you little shit!” waving his hand inside the water.  
I was expecting a wave of water to hit me in the face. Instead I felt a strong current sweep me from my feet as a large whirlpool emerged out of nowhere. “Wait, stop! Imsorryimsorryimsorry!!!!” As the water current pushed and dragged me all around.  
The next thing I knew I was resting on the surf of the shore, the entire beach spinning all around me. Somehow I had managed not to drown. in fact my face had barely even gone underwater throughout the entire ordeal.  
A few feet ahead of me was aniki, he was already off the water and it appeared like he was about to leave.  
“Are you going already, first?” Mugino asked when aniki passed nearby. “Come now don’t do that.” She mused calmly from the reclining chair where she was tanning. “Poor Kuro-chan was so happy when you came, so don’t go and disappoint her now.” Although it seemed like she was merely being friendly, there was a slight ironic twist to her tone.  
“Yeah, stay a bit longer Accelerator.” Saiai remarked in an overly sweet manner. “Why don’t you take a seat and get a super tan. God knows that would be super good for you.”   
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that today, knock off.” Aniki hissed snidely, approaching my friends with one of his venomous smiles. “But no thanks, I only came here cuz I wanted to try one of these drinks.” Taking Saiai´s piña colada and sipping some of it.  
“Is it super good?” Saiai quipped drily, seemingly unaffected by aniki’s provocation.  
“Could be worse...” aniki answered in kind, before dropping the glass to the sand and turning his back on them.  
“Wait, where are you going aniki..?” when my head stopped spinning, I quickly got on my feet and followed.   
“Getting the fuck out of here, what else.” he said irritably, not bothering to even look back as he kept walking. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not exactly the beach type.”  
With my eyes tearing up, I grabbed his arm and tried to stop him from leaving. “No, not yet please!” He was going back to his little shell at the couch. “…why don’t help, bury me in the sand first?”  
With an annoyed click of his tongue, aniki gave a quick stomp to the ground. The next thing I knew I was on the ground completely covered in sand from head to toe. “There, happy; Now piss off you little shit!” aniki said sarcastically before leaving altogether.  
Afterwards I brushed the sand off and got up, sitting next to Mugino and Saiai; turning on some music in an effort to ease up some of my frustration.  
“Hey waiter, aren’t you forgetting someone?” I asked with cool indignation to the underling who kept working on Mugino’s back. “What about my Piña Colada?” He had only brought drinks for Mugino and Saiai.  
“Your Piña Colada is right there Kuro-chan.” Mugino interjected coldly, pointing at the drink that aniki spilled. “Pick it from the sand and drink it, if you want any.”  
I swallowed my words when the meaning behind Mugino’s insinuation sank in; an awkward silence permeating throughout the whole room. “I should turn you into ash you know, just who the fuck do you think you are bringing that freak over to my territory?” she hissed with an angry glare.  
“Is that all you can talk about?” I asked irately as I got up. “Territory this, Faction that!” I retorted dismissively before I began to leave as well.   
“Be that as it may, I don’t recommend for you to go on your own Kuro-chan.” Mugino warned apathetically, not even bothering to even move as she continued to sunbathe. “I’m not the only one who isn’t all too happy with you.”  
I, however, went to the changing rooms and just ignored her; tired and disgusted of all her nonsense! I was sick of the cliques and gangs, of territories and what not. After changing into my uniform I left Mugino’s beach, the exercise room with a pool that was the main territory of her faction.   
But now that I had angrily run off from them, there was nowhere else for me to go. Aniki was probably still irritated from before and besides I wasn’t all too happy with him and his rotten attitude either.   
So I just wandered around the halls instead, not going anywhere in particular as I tried to compose myself.   
“Well look what we have here!” A voice calling out from the side brought me back from my thoughts. Looking to my left I saw two students leaning next to a door.  
“…if it isn’t the firsts’ rat!” Taunted the teen who had called out to me before, he was a punk no older than fourteen with short black hair. And although he seemed like nothing more than a runt, being rather skinny and short for his age, something in his tone and demeanor reminded me of aniki.  
“The hell are you doing here, rat?” The other one demanded. He was much bigger and heavier; a giant of a brute who wore a bandana over his head and looked no less vicious.   
“Passing through…” I stated coolly, doing the best I could to hide my irritation. Remembering Mugino’s warning, I tried to be nonbelligerent and just kept walking.  
“Ohoo did you hear that?” the runt jeered sarcastically as he instantly cut me off. It was difficult to describe how it happened; his movements were swift yet eerily smooth, like he was floating in the air. “The little rat thinks she can just pass through our territory like she owns it.” At one moment he was right behind me then in the next being on my front, almost like he had gone through me.  
“Again with the territories…”I muttered softly, trying to contain my growing irritation.  
“What’s that rat?” The big one taunted as he got right behind, effectively trapping me between the two. “Speak louder, we can’t hear ya!”  
“You own nothing you fucking idiots!” I snarled angrily, I didn’t know where that came from; maybe I had spent way too much time with aniki. “It’s the adults who own everything; it’s Kihara and the other scientists who are really in control!” But now that the dam had been broken, I couldn’t just close it down.   
“They are just making you think you own territory to control us…” I paused for a moment, remembering back at the coliseum when Mugino had butchered that other student. “…to pit us against each other!”   
“Don’t you see that!?” Perhaps I wasn’t making much sense at all as I vented all my frustration with my irrelevant rant. “Don’t you see that they are just using us as guinea pigs, that they are letting you think you own something just so that we’ll slaug-”  
“Shut the fuck up already, you little cunt!” I was interrupted abruptly by the big guy behind me. “My ears are hurting from all your damn screeching!” his large, constricting hands clutching over the back of my neck and hair and pulling me cruelly off the ground.  
“Just who the fuck do you think you are, rat?” The black haired student whispered spitefully. He was glaring at me straight on the face with daggers his eyes. “You think that just because you are that freaks’ pet, that you are better than us; that you can lecture us?” He asked with a bitter hiss, raising his right hand towards my face. “Don’t get cocky you fucking bitch!”   
I uselessly struggled to break free as I watched the runts’ hand get closer. And though it approached gently, there was something that felt rather threatening about it; as if that hand, those fingers even, only needed to touch me to cause great harm.  
“Two against one is super unfair.” I was released with a sudden jerk, yanked free from the brutes hold and crashing to the floor as he in turn was thrown against the wall. It was Saiai; she had been looking for me ever since I left. “Let’s make it a fair fight!” My friend bellowed, rushing towards the runt before unleashing a flurry of punches.   
“Heh, Another pet showed up!” The runt however, was too fast. “What, is this the meeting place for you bitches!?” He taunted, seemingly avoiding all of Saiais’ blows by sliding left or right.   
“You’re the only bitch I see.” Saiai countered coldly. “Why don’t you super grow a pair and materialize already?” That’s when I realized that the runt wasn’t dodging at all; Saiais’ attacks weren’t being evaded, they were going through him.   
“You think I’ll fall for that?” He scoffed in disbelief, his whole body passing through Saiai every time she tried to hit him; not unlike he was dancing all around her. “Why would I bother with the model student of this place?”  
“Didn’t you get his patterns super embedded as well, Ghost?” She said unemotionally, stopping her assault. “I heard that your phantom hand can pass through skin and bone and super tear organs from inside out. But for that to happen you have to materialize.” She continued, lying perfectly still, her arms up in a defensive fighting stance.   
“So why don’t you super prove them wrong and show that your phantom hand is better than my offense armor?” She goaded her body ready to strike at any moment. Saiai and the student called Ghost glowering at each other.   
The tension was palpable. As I watched them still on the floor, it felt like those two were some sort samurais or gunslingers, that they were ready to put their lives on the line on one final draw, one that meant life or death for either one of them.   
But before that could happen, the door that those two students had been waiting on opened, the esper called Kakine emerging from the other side.  
“What’s this? Could it be that Mugino is so eager to go to war?” Kakine finally asked after taking a moment to assess the situation. “Or maybe is just you Saiai, maybe the little star of this place didn’t have enough when she fought the first and now wants to try her luck with me?” The second level five esper mused, the air around him starting to distort as he approached my friend.  
“I’m not here to fight.” Saiai said coolly, slowly backing away towards me while still facing Kakine. “Kuroko was being super bullied by your underlings, so I had to save her.” Although she still acted calm and collected; the tone of her voice seemed to have lost some of its previous confidence.   
“Huh… is that true Ghost?” said Kakine ironically, looking back at the runt.   
“Hey, the bitch was in our territory boss.” Ghost shrugged nonchalantly with a smirk on his face.  
“Was she now?” Kakine remarked with a wry smile of his own. It seemed like those two were sharing a joke with one another.  
“She super didn’t do it on purpose.” Saiai interjected, trying her best to explain. “Kuroko was just unaware that this was your territory and super stumbled accidentally, that’s all.”  
“Oh, so the mouse didn’t do it on purpose?” Kakine repeated in a mocking tone. The nickname that those two called me came from him apparently. “This is just one big misunderstanding?” Saiai didn’t respond, merely nodding as she kept her eyes on Kakine and maintained her guard up.  
“I can understand that… it’s reasonable for a newbie like her to do such a mistake.” Kakine said to our relief, Saiai relaxing a little bit. “And when you saw your friend being ganged up for her little faux pas, you had to intervene, so I’m not going to hold it against you either. I’m not that huge of an asshole!”   
“We have a small problem though…” he said approaching the two of us casually. “You see I still have a reputation to keep and the two of you did invade my territory and attacked one of my underlings. So I want a proper apology from you.” Kakine insisted from Saiai, he was right next to her by now, looking down at my friend with a smirk on his face.  
“An apology..?” Saiai said confusedly. “Ok, sure I’m sorr-” Before Saiai could finish she was knocked to the floor with a blow to the head. It was so fast that I could barely see what happened. Kakine had struck Saiai with something, with some kind of dark object that came out of nowhere.  
“I said I wanted a proper apology! Don’t you brats these days know what that is?”Kakine asked as he began to kick her in the gut. “I want you to crawl on the ground and beg for forgiveness… and make sure to add ‘super’ to every other word you say.” He continued with sadistic glee. His right leg pressed down on Saiai’s back, squashing her to the floor.  
The underlings quickly joined in, the three of them laughing and sneering at my friend as they took turns beating her. I just couldn’t take it anymore. Seeing Saiai being abused before my eyes, along with everything else I went through here, combined to make me weep at the unfairness of it all.  
When the fuck are you going to stop crying? Suddenly those words resonated inside my mind. If you want to survive then become stronger..! Everything that aniki had told me before in our room came back. Strong enough that they’ll leave you alone… At that moment something snapped inside me. Strong enough to shut those bastards up!  
Without thinking I reached out for Kakine’s left ankle. He didn’t know what hit him. One moment he was on his feet hurting Saiai then in the next he was upside down crashing head first to the floor. A tense silence filled the hallway. Everyone, including myself, was stunned at what a mouse like me just did.   
However that only lasted a second. Kakine was slowly recovering, tottering on his hands and knees, trying to get back on his feet. I was in a loss on what to do. I’d done what aniki taught me but that hadn’t been enough. But when I saw their disbelief turn into outrage as those three glared at me with murder in their eyes; I did the only thing that I could think of. Turning around and running away from them as fast as I could.  
“What are you waiting for, get her!” I heard Kakine shout behind me. Dashing through the hallways, I saw the brute chasing after me alone, the others nowhere to be found.   
“You’re too slow, rat.” I heard from the side; the runt emerging from the left wall just as the passage turned right on a corner. He elbowed me violently. Making me stumble and crash against the wall. “You gotta pick up the pace if you want to live.” Ghost just stood there taunting. “You should hurry and get up before he catches you.”   
With my head still spinning, I Looked behind me, the bigger underling was almost upon me. I frantically tried to get up; however my body was still dazed from the previous blow. The brute didn’t even slow down, smashing into me and crushing all my bones had I not teleported myself at the last second.  
I did it unconsciously. I just wanted to get out of the way. Looking where I had been, I saw that the brute had smashed through the wall like it was made out of paper. “Ha ha ha, Takeyama you retard!” Ghost cackled, mocking his partner that was apparently called Takeyama.   
“Fuck you shithead, why the fuck didn’t you get her!?” The brute retorted, the two of them starting an argument. Not bothering to notice that I had sprung to my feet and left.   
They quickly caught up though, both of them in hot pursuit. I had to do something; the runt was much faster than me, and soon he would overtake me again. Desperately I teleported any object that I could get my hands on.  
Cleaning robots, research equipment, cameras; anything short of other humans I placed right on their path. It barely had an effect. Ghost went through everything like it wasn’t there, while Takeyama tore past them like they were nothing.  
“Is that all yah got, rat!?” The runt sneered before smacking me behind the head. He was toying with me. Ghost could have knocked me down and ended this already. Instead he just kept harassing me.  
Luckily when Ghost was about to pull me by my hair, I suddenly turned right on a fork. The runt went through the wall instead of keeping the pursuit. That’s when I noticed that I succeeded in losing him whenever we turned a corner.   
While the runt’s power allowed him to glide swiftly, it also made it difficult for him to change course. As such I began to turn every corner that I could, even using my teleportation to adjust the direction that I was running towards.   
Regrettably that still wasn’t enough; Ghost all of a sudden appeared on my front, emerging from the roof as he tried to intercept me with a leap. I urgently teleported 180 degrees as I managed to avoid the runt at the last second, before fleeing from him in the opposite direction.   
I had been so focused on escaping the runt’s badgering however, that I had forgotten completely about the bigger one. I was just about to run straight to him, the two of us on a collision course. Takeyama reached out to seize me, whilst I in turn ducked through his lunge. Using my size to my advantage as I then grabbed one of his legs and teleported him down to the floor.  
I then kept bolting through the hallways as I tried to find a place to hide. Looking back I couldn’t see either of them, which made me hopeful that I had finally managed to shake them off. That hope was crushed when I felt a hand hit me by the leg, almost causing me to slip. It was Ghost. He had risen from the floor and renewed the chase.   
I just about had it. Remembering what Saiai said, I began to form a plan. Seeing Ghost to my right, I started to run slightly at an angle. The runt thinking that I was trying to get away from him when in fact I was luring him closer to the left wall. I bid my time. Waiting until he tried to ram me against the wall to teleport out of his way, making him crash head first into it instead.  
With that I finally had lost them both. But by now the hallways were getting increasingly crowded with other students. It seemed like the training period was over. Since I was too small to just run through them, I tried instead to hide amongst the crowd.  
I walked slowly along the mass of students, trying to catch my breath. If truth be told I was exhausted from all that running. “Everyone get the fuck out of my way!” I heard a shout further on. It was Kakine; he was knocking down students left and right as he joined up the hunt.  
“Over here, Boss!” Another voice called out from behind, this time it came from Ghost. Looking behind I saw him and Takeyama steadily approaching. The runt was glowering at me as he bled through the nose. Ghost Likely blamed me for breaking it back when he crashed against the wall.  
I helplessly tried to make a run for it, the large crowd all but making it impossible. I was on a tight spot. Those three had me surrounded. Their powers enabling them to go through the mob easily as they rapidly closed in around me. I on the other hand couldn’t use mine.   
Everywhere I looked there was a student blocking my view; the only spot that I could find a fixed point to use my teleportation was the roof. Without thinking it further I took a risk, too terrified of Kakine and the others to reconsider.   
I teleported the farthest I effectively could, going through the roof to the next level. I emerged a few feet in midair before collapsing on the floor. I inspected my body before breathing a sigh of relief. I had teleported safely from such a long distance unscathed. Furthermore I had escaped from them for good.  
After a few more moments I slowly got up. Looking around I noticed that I had teleported into some sort of office. The lights were turned off so there was very little illumination in the room. But of what I could make out the place was packed with rows of cubicles containing computers, printers and other working equipment. The office was completely deserted, nobody working there at the moment, the only sound in the room coming from the hum of the air conditioning and my heavy panting.   
“You didn’t think it was over, did you?” A voice echoed through the room. Before I could locate its source, I was kicked from behind, knocking me to the ground. “No… not until you pay for making a fool out of me.” I looked back at the person whispering at me. I could barely see him; but it was probably the runt.  
I hysterically stumbled back to my feet, my hands finding purchase on a chair as I got up. Without thinking I threw it behind, desperate to put something between myself and Ghost. Who I knew was right behind, hounding me.  
The next thing I knew however, Ghost had appeared in front of me. He had passed through both the chair and me and began pulling my hair. “Ha ha ha you fucking idiot, don’t you know how my ability works!?” he jeered before throwing me violently through the top of a cubicle.  
I was swept across the table painfully, knocking all its contents to the ground before I myself fell with them. “I’m what it’s called a phaser. Using my AIM field I separate the molecules of my body from this dimension and make myself intangible.” While Ghost kept rambling on. I helplessly tried to crawl away, my head spinning from my ordeal.   
“That means that I’ll just go through any object that you throw or put in my way.” My feeble attempt to escape was quickly interrupted when Ghost kicked me on my guts, my lungs gasping desperately, my eyes watering.   
“But that’s not the only way I can use my phasing.” The runt continued, his feet pushing on my shoulder and flipping me on my back. “For instance what would happen if I were to materialize my hand when it’s inside your chest?” He asked coldly. Kneeling down and resting his knees on my arms. Pinning my upper limbs and preventing me from using them.   
“If I did, rat, then your aorta might burst.” Ghost mused cruelly, his left hand grabbing me by the jaw and forcing me to look at his cold eyes. “Hell! I could even rip off your heart if I wanted to!” When those words rang into my ear, my heart raced with fear. “Otherwise I could just shove my hand through your skull and turn your brain into mush.” By now my weeping eyes had adapted to the dark so I could see how his other hand was approaching my face.  
I was trapped. With him on top of me like that, I couldn’t teleport away effectively. Even worst, my arms were pinned down; so I couldn’t use them to teleport him off me either. I wildly writhed left and right, struggling hopelessly to get the runt off me. But as my arms thrashed about, I felt my right hand touch a small, thin; tube like object. It was probably a pen or a pencil; likely it had tumbled down to the floor when I was thrown through the table.  
I had to do something. I needed to get him off me somehow. Given that his left hand was right in front of me clutching my chin. I frantically grabbed the pen and teleported towards it, knowing that the part of his body that was actually holding me would be vulnerable.  
Because of the way Ghost’s hand grasped my face; I could see firsthand how the pen punctured through his palm. I could see how it pierced through meat and bones, how the veins snapped and blood spurted out; I could hear the bone cracking, his flesh tearing. I could almost feel his pain even.  
With a squeal, the runt jolted up in agony, his hand released my chin as he examined the damage. “My hand, what the fuck did you do to my hand!!?” He screeched in shock, his right hand nursing his wounded palm as he tilted to his left. Seeing that Ghost was off balance, having lost all interest in holding me down, I took the opportunity and succeeded in pushing him off. “You’re so fucking dead, bitch!!!” He shrieked, rolling frenziedly on the ground.   
Clutching myself, I ran away from there as fast as I could. Horrified at what I had just done. I had purposely used my teleportation to seriously hurt another human being. I was a monster, as terrible as the worst in this school. It was no wonder that my parents had forsaken me.  
Every time I closed my eyes I could see the runt’s hand getting punctured by a pen. Abruptly, that image was snapped out of my mind with a smack to the face, my body falling to the ground with a heavy thud. I was so plagued with guilt that I didn’t notice that I had run straight into Kakine’s path.   
“That’s for that little stunt you pulled.” Kakine sneered, his icy eyes looking down on me for a moment before he walked away; not unlike a bug that he just squashed. I didn’t try to get away. My legs felt like they were made out of stone. Furthermore Takeyama was keeping an eye on me so, even if I tried, I would have to hurt him to get away.   
It didn’t take long until Ghost appeared as well, the violent echoes of his stomping drawing ever closer. “Oh nice one boss, you got her.” He hissed with clenched teeth, his right hand grabbing my left ponytail and pulling at it harshly. “You are gonna pay for what you did cunt. I’m going to fucking drag you to our base and take my sweet time with you.” I cried feebly in return. My eyes closing as tears flowed down my cheek.   
“First I’m gonna rip out the tendons in your legs so you can’t run away.” I felt him whisper in my ear. “Then I’m gonna take you apart piece by piece, rat.” He growled at me with a kick. “You should have let me kill you back then; it would have been quick. Now I’m going to give you a slow, agonizing death.” He said darkly, his hand tugging even more violently as he tried to yank me up on my feet.   
“Fucking bitch get up already, its time you faced the music!” I wouldn’t budge from the cold floor though. I didn’t care to continue this game any longer. If they wanted to kill me they would have to do it here.   
Suddenly, with a violent snap, Ghost’s abuse stopped. The hand that had been tormenting my hair was gone. “Don’t ya think you are getting a little out of hand there?” an excruciating howl filled the hallways as I felt something wet and warm spray all over my hair and back.   
Opening my eyes, I saw Ghost staggering, spewing blood all over the place before he stumbled to the ground and passed out. His right arm was missing, ripped all the way from the armpit. There was someone else right next to me. A white haired demon smirking sadistically as he held the runt’s missing arm.  
“You bastard!!!” the larger underling bellowed out, a vein pulsing visibly from his brow as he charged at Accelerator. Aniki leapt at him in return, instantly covering the distance and getting right in front of the brute. He clutched Takeyama’s face with his right hand and hauled him to the wall, smashing his head against it.   
His head burst like a tomato, blood; bone fragments and bits of brain flying everywhere. “Hey now, there’s no need to lose your head.” aniki quipped with heartless glee, his right arm covered with blood while his left still held the runt’s missing arm. Horrified at what aniki did, I began to shudder uncontrollably. All this time those two had seemed like unstoppable, brutal monsters; yet aniki had slaughtered them like they were nothing.   
“Ha ha ha, how fucking hilarious…” Kakine said lamely, clapping in a loud, slow manner. “Are you done with your shitty puns already?” He continued, glaring coldly at aniki with pursed lips.  
“And what about you Kakine, are you done being a second rate bitch?” aniki retorted, turning around to give Kakine a similar look. “Were you so scared of me that you had to go after my underling instead?” Accelerator said spitefully as he approached Kakine, throwing away the ripped hand; not unlike a snake that would spit out a lesser prey so it could go after a bigger one.   
“Oh don’t flatter yourself, Accelerator.” Kakine answered dismissively, likewise advancing towards aniki as they got on each other’s faces. “The mouse had the nerve to enter my territory so I taught her a lesson; it had nothing to do with you.” By now all that commotion had attracted several onlookers.  
“Kakine, you second rate shit, don’t you get that you have no territory?” aniki snickered, his eyes still glaring daggers. “That this is my house; that you are nothing but a guest?” He said with a growl, the two of them seemed like beasts that were sizing each other up. “But I guess scumbags like you have forgotten that, I guess that the one that needs to be taught a lesson here is you; I guess that I’ll just have to make a statement to all the other bastards by killing you.”   
But before those two beasts could pounce on one another and start fighting, a large squad of guards converged around them from both sides. The men armed with heavy, wall-like metallic shields, some dangerous looking rifles and other assortment of anti-esper gear.   
“What the fuck are you little bastards doing!?” A voice rang out, the guards moving to the side to let him pass. “Haven’t I made it perfectly clear that the only place you shitheads are allowed to slaughter each other is at the coliseum?” It was director Kihara; unlike the heavily armored guards, he was wearing his usual lab coat.   
“Tch, all this time the pipsqueak was being hunted like an animal,” aniki spat in disgust, not taking his eyes off Kakine. “And it’s now that you bastards decide to show up!?”   
“I was planning on intervening.” The director answered calmly, standing there all relaxed with his hands on his pockets. “But Kuro-chan was doing such a great job on her own, that I decided that this would be a perfect occasion for her to practice what she learned.” Kihara said with a mocking smirk on his face.  
“And ya think I’m gonna stop now?” Aniki snorted out in disbelief. “Fuck that!” he shouted, swinging his arm in a dismissive manner. “Any of you bastards try to interfere and I’ll crush you along with him!” The hostile atmosphere between him and Kakine intensified, the air seeming to twist around them.   
“Really Accelerator…” The director sneered sarcastically. “And here I thought that you didn’t want to see Kuro-chan get hurt any further.” He continued, leering at me for a moment. “But hey, knock yourself out!” Kihara shrugged exaggeratedly. “Wreck this place apart! Get everyone here involved in your little spat; it’s not like we can stop the two of you anyway!”  
Aniki gave me a passing glance, mellowing out slightly. “So be it then…” He said more softly. “But I’m not going to wait a day or two to kill this second rate shit!” aniki raised his voice once again, his eyes turning back to Kakine with an angry scowl. “We meet in fifteen minutes at the coliseum.”  
“And what makes you think I’m gonna wait?” Kakine said with narrowed eyes that shone with cruel amusement. “Why not now you faggot? This isn’t like you Accelerator… tell me do you think she’ll do well as a meat shield?” He mused with a mocking smirk, tapping his finger on his chin artificially.   
Aniki was about to snap violently when Kihara intervened. “Come now Kakine-chan, how are you going to show the board of directors your worth if we don’t record it at the coliseum?” When he heard those words, Kakine’s cocky smile dissipated.  
Knowing that Kakine had no choice, it was now aniki who was smirking victoriously. “Get your shit together Kakine.” he jeered. “Write your will; Say your final farewells, because in fifteen minutes you are going to meet your maker.”  
“That’s my line, bastard!” Kakine retorted with a scoff. “I’m going to enjoy bringing you down a peg or two at the coliseum.” he continued irately, turning around and leaving through the left hallway.  
I hesitantly stumbled closer to aniki. “Wait Aniki don’t do thi--…” my hands shaking uncontrollably as I tried to reach him.  
“Kuroko…” aniki interrupted in a cold yet gentle tone, his face turned away from me. “Just go to the infirmary and get fixed, I’ll see you there after I’m done.” He uttered before walking away in the opposite direction of Kakine, not bothering to look back at me even once.   
Taking the cue; the director, guards and onlookers began to disperse. “Man, I better get going. There are so many preparations to make in so little time.” Kihara said as he left. The guards following him along while others, the medics, began to recover what were left of Kakine’s underlings.   
Meanwhile the onlookers were in a furor. Announcing loudly to anyone that they came across that aniki and Kakine were going to fight. In moments the news spread around like wildfire, the small crowd turning into a mob as they all headed for the Betting Hall.  
I absently followed them along, my mind still in shock at what I had witnessed. I couldn’t believe what Accelerator had done. The monster who had so ruthlessly butchered those two was the same aniki who had played with me; the same aniki who had hugged me, who had allowed me to stay on his bed.  
“Kuroko..! Hey, Kuroko..!” I was snapped back to reality by a pinch to my cheek. It was Mugino; she was looking at me with eyes that almost betrayed a hint of concern.  
“Oh Mugino…” I said in a deadpan voice, barely reacting to the pinch. Looking to my side I noticed that Saiai was giving me horrified look. “And Saiai… how are you? Were you hur—”   
“I’m super alright but what about you, kuroko?” She interrupted, getting closer to me and placing a hand on my shoulder.  
“W-what do you mean, I’m fine.” I said softly, giving Saiai a weak smile.  
“Kuroko, you’re covered in blood.” Mugino stated plainly, her mouth twisted into an awkward smirk of disbelief.   
Hearing her words I came to the realization that most of my back and hair were colored a deep dark red. “Don’t worry, it’s…it’s not mine.” I stifled; what I had felt sprayed on my back was Ghost’s blood after all. Looking around I noticed that we were in the entrance to the betting hall, the one that I had seen aniki and Saiai fight before. The place so packed that it would be impossible for me to get in.   
“Kuroko…” Saiai fumbled for words. “Maybe it’s super better if you go change.” She continued soothingly.   
“I can’t…” I said in a trembling tone. “Not now, I have to see aniki.” I didn’t know why I was so determined to see aniki fight. Perhaps because it was my fault that all this happened, perhaps I was just concerned for aniki’s safety, or perhaps I needed to know what he was about to do, whatever the case I just couldn’t leave.  
Mugino stared at me for a moment. “Fine then let’s go.” Before going through the door and starting to clear out a path. “Hey you bastards get the fuck out of our way or I’ll turn you into ash!” She shouted, shoving and smacking those that didn’t heed her warning.   
Thanks to Mugino who was in my front and Saiai right behind me; we managed to find the perfect spot to see the video feed. Aniki was already there waiting, standing there without saying a word, an icy look on his face.   
[Crack, crack, crick] that was the only sound that resonated throughout the room. [Crack, cruck, crick] Aniki just kept cracking his shoulders, his fingers and his neck. [Crack, crackle, crick] Everyone just stood there silently, several tense minutes crawling by at a snail pace. [crack, cruck, crick]   
Until finally; Kakine arrived. [“Well here I am accele—”]  
[“EEAAAARRRGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”] Aniki screeched wildly, not willing to wait a second longer as he rushed towards Kakine. Interrupting abruptly whatever taunts or wisecracks Kakine was planning to make.   
In frenzy, aniki began to swing at Kakine with both arms. He in turn desperately dodged Accelerator’s blows by backing away to the right or left. Kakine had been caught off guard, completely on the defensive as Aniki kept the pressure with an unending flurry of blows.   
With a resounding boom, aniki finally managed to connect. Kakine hurled back a few feet. However Kakine was mostly unhurt. The blow had actually hit him on a cross guard, where some sort of dark shield had come to materialize.   
A black aura seemed to surround Kakine. “Dark Matter… a type of matter that doesn’t exist in this world,” Mugino muttered. “one that Kakine creates by only using his mind.” Suddenly that aura surged out as it hurled itself towards aniki, not unlike a dark wave that swept away anyone who stood in its path.  
With a growl, aniki leapt over and tried to land a flying kick on Kakine’s face. Instead aniki’s feet crashed into the floor similar to a meteor smashing into Earth, chunks of the floor flying all over the place. Kakine managed to roll away in time.   
With his foot still digging deep on the floor, aniki kicked out towards Kakine; a huge landslide of concrete flying straight at him. In response, Kakine formed a black wall in front of him, covering himself with it.  
[Over here dickhead..!] Out of nowhere, aniki had appeared behind Kakine. He had used the previous attack as a distraction and gotten around Kakine, punching his face when he looked back.   
Caught by surprise, Kakine tried to block the blow with dark matter. However, he did not have enough time to form a complete shield around his face, only managing to absorb part of the damage as he flew off.  
Aniki chased after Kakine, bent on finishing him. [You motherfucker..!] Kakine said as he tossed the dark matter that he used to defend himself. Smashing it straight into aniki’s face and stopping him on his tracks.   
I bit my lip when I saw aniki fall to the ground. “What was that!? Did Kakine’s Dark Matter go through Accelerator’s Reflect!?” someone in the crowd said in shock. I on the other hand just stood frozen in place, watching the screen.   
They got up almost at the same time, both of them bloody; aniki from the nose, Kakine from the mouth. They were grimacing with bloodlust in their eyes as they charged at each other. But aniki miscalculated Kakine’s range. Out of nowhere Kakine swung an ebony club that emerged from his right hand, bashing aniki in the head. [“What’s the matter Accelerator, is your Reflect not good enough!!?”]   
My heart sank to my knees at seeing Aniki get hit. Wincing slightly when blood spurted out of his forehead and he stumbled to ground once again. “No…” I mumbled to myself, “Aniki has to be alright…” my trembling hands clutching tightly.   
Gasps and cries of disbelief filled the hall. Everyone in the room, this whole place even, was stunned at what happened. All except for Aniki; who before Kakine could capitalize and bash his head in, quickly stomped his right hand into the ground and caused a violent tremor. The impact reverberated across the facility. The shockwave making the ground jolt up and down like it was a tsunami.   
Kakine staggered around, struggling desperately to stay on his feet. Seeing that, aniki sprang up and spin kicked his rival around his left shoulder. With a cracking sound, Kakine’s arm twisted unnaturally. Kakine flung to the other side, rolling and bouncing all over the floor.  
Having retaken the initiative, Aniki renewed the offensive. [“What’s the matter Kakine, is your dark matter not good enough!!?”] Aniki sneered, mocking Kakine’s tone as he charged at him at full speed.  
Kakine crawled up to his knees, his right hand nursing his broken left arm. [ACCELERATOR!!!] He bellowed with bloodshot eyes, his aura shooting out whip-like tentacles.  
The whips lashed at aniki from every direction, the first few trying to hit Aniki from above as he dodged them by sliding left or right using zigzag motions. Then when the whips struck from the sides, aniki avoided them by soaring high into the air. [KAKINE!!!] He roared back, plunging furiously towards his foe.  
Kakine managed to stop him in his tracks by forming an oval shield around him, aniki crashing into it similar to a war hammer smashing against a shield. Aniki didn’t let up, flying all the way up to the roof before pushing against it and using its momentum to do a dive bomb. The betting hall shook violently, everyone juddering from the impact.   
I yelped out as I was knocked off my feet. The lights flicking off for an instant as it felt like the school was being bombarded. I looked up at the screen with trembling, watery eyes, horrified at the berserk beast that aniki had become. I didn’t want to see him this way, I had to do something.  
After the fifth time, the second rate’s shield shattered completely. Landing next to him, I broke Kakine’s right arm when he tried to block my swinging arm. With a satisfying crunch the second rate collapsed on the floor.  
My veins felt like they were on fire. Almost getting a hard on when I licked my lips and tasted the tangy flavor of blood. “I knew this day would come,” I said, approaching the fallen trash. “That I’d eventually make you into an example for the rabble…”  
I crouched down next to the second rate. “I’ve been working on this for a while now, waiting for the moment that I could use it on you.” I whispered in his ear. “You’re gonna be my masterpiece, Kakine.” I thrust my hand into a cut that he had on his back.   
The punk cried out in agony as my hand dug deeper. “Tell me Kakine, what do yah think’s gonna happen when I redirect your blood?” to my delight, I could see the horror in Second rate’s face. “That’s right, you’re gonna burst from the inside out!” I sneered sadistically, changing my vectors from its default, reflect settings.  
“Now Kakine, I’m gonna show everyone what happens when they fuck with me!” But just when I was about to redirect his blood, I felt a hand grab my arm from behind. It was Kuroko; she was looking at me with a sullen expression on her face.  
The next thing I knew, instead of being illuminated by artificial light, I was being blinded by the setting sun. The warm summer air was hitting my skin in place of the usual cold air conditioner. The smell of iron was fading from my nose, replaced by more natural odors. The brat had teleported us outside, to the roof of the facility.  
“The fuck did you do, pipsqueak!?” I snapped at the little shit, clutching her by the wrist. “I almost had him!”  
The brat tried to back away. “But aniki you…” She stuttered with scared eyes. “You were going to kill him if you kept going!”   
“No shit I was going to kill him!” I smashed my fist against the wall next to us, making the whole thing collapse into pieces. “…and so what!?” Since I had been denied my prey, I needed to discharge my rage somehow. “Don’t ever interfere again!”   
Wrenching her hand free, the pipsqueak stumbled to the floor; covering her trembling body.  
Seeing her like this, I stopped my outburst. I closed my eyes and stood perfectly still, breathing deeply as I tried to contain my anger. For a while now a fire had been raging inside my chest, one that could only be quenched with blood.   
“This isn’t the real you, aniki.” She said between sniffs, getting up from the floor now that I had calmed down. “You are not that horrible a monster as you say you are.” The pipsqueak approached hesitantly, her hands reaching out to me.   
I stiffened for a moment when I felt her warmth. My stomach tightened up, my arm shoving her off me instinctively when she invaded my personal space. “Feh, What the fuck do you know about me!?” I spat angrily.  
“Didn’t I tell you this before?” I pushed the brat against the wall, or at least what remained of it. “Didn’t I warn you that I was a monster?” Grabbing her shoulder when she tried to scamper off, pinning her in place. “That I’d squash you if you messed with me?”  
I grabbed her by her chin, forcing her to look me in the eyes. “Then Listen to me and listen well, bitch.” I said in a cold controlled tone. “If I ever see you get close to me again, if I even catch the slightest glimpse of you.” I continued as she looked back with aching, glossy eyes. “I’ll kill you.”   
I released her from my hold and walked away. Smashing the door open and leaving the roof before I crushed the little shit’s head in.  
It was already dark when I got up from the ground and went back in. There were smashed walls as I walked down the stairs; doors were torn and missing as I passed through the dorms, I even saw shattered glass from time to time. It seemed like aniki had left a path of destruction in his wake.   
Every student that I came across kept their distance from me, their stares reminding me of the ones that they gave aniki. With Accelerator’s warning still on my mind, I reached the end of the hallway. What was I supposed to do? That was still my room, the only place I could go.  
Aniki had broken down yet another door, the whole thing completely missing. I stood right at the entrance, looking inside. Aniki was lying down in his bed, his hands behind his head. For a moment I thought that he might be asleep but then I saw his eyes glaring straight at me.   
My heart jumped on my chest, my legs stood frozen in place. Before, I wouldn’t have believed that aniki would try to kill me. But I wasn’t too sure now, not after the way Accelerator tore through those students. I felt like the day we met, that the room was the cage of a murderous beast.  
Thankfully someone grabbed my wrist from behind. “Let’s go Kuroko.” Saiai said as she dragged me away from the room. “It’s super better if you come with me.”  
We went and took a bath after when we left aniki’s room. We were a complete mess, Saiai bruised and dirty while I had the rotting stench of blood all over me. Afterwards Saiai invited me to stay over in her room, snuggling next to my friend on her bed.  
“Really Kuroko, what did you think was going to happen?” Mugino said, resting on the opposite bed. “That he was going to give you a hug and thank you for stopping him from blowing things out of proportions?” She began to cackle halfway through, maybe there was a joke that I just didn’t get.   
I remained silent however, too depressed to even answer. “Ignore her Kuroko.” Saiai said trying to comfort me. “She’s just super happy that things turn out better than she’d hoped.”  
“…What do you guys know about the real aniki.” I uttered after a short pause. “He’s not the monster that you all say he is.” I remembered when he called out to his mother. “He’s really just a kid.”  
“Is he now…” Saiai said with an amused smile. “Actually there was a time when Accelerator and I weren’t in such super bad terms.” I tilted my head towards my friend, looking at her. “Did you know that there used to be another Kuro-chan before?”   
“I think Kihara said something like that.” I said, remembering back when I first came here.   
“Her name was Kuroyoru Umidori, she came to this place almost as the same time as me.” Saiai whispered to me softly. “We were always competing with one another so weren’t exactly super friends or anything.”  
“That’s nice, but what does that have to do with aniki?”  
“Kihara had Accelerator mentor us from time to time. Even though he was an anti-social jerk he wasn’t that super bad.” Saiai murmured with a sad expression on her face. “In time the two of us had grown on him, so I guess he’s just like you said.”   
“But then Kuroyoru had an accident, killing a lot of scientists and mutilating her own body in an experiment.” Saiai paused for a moment. “After that Accelerator wasn’t the same, he became even more super hostile towards others.” I could sense a hint of sadness on her tone. “He had even insulted all the work that Kuroyoru and I had done.”   
“That’s why I challenged Accelerator before.” Saiai said her calm tone starting to crack. “I wanted him to take back what he said, for him to at least acknowledge our efforts.” I wrapped my left arm more tightly around Saiai, trying to comfort her. “Truth is Kuroko; that everyone here is a super monster, even if some of us are kids.”  
I felt like a volcano, every time I erupted I would smash things or growled out a curse. This rage was consuming me to the core. How fucking dare she-- who the fuck did she think she was!  
I was snorting out loudly, breathing in and out agitatedly. My fingers would jerk up and down, my hands opening and closing into fists. I needed to kill someone. Didn’t the dumb bitch get it!? I needed to put an example for the trash!   
I remembered back earlier today. After leaving the beach I had gone back to the rec-room to watch TV.   
“Accelerator!” Saiai had called out desperately from the entrance. “Kakine and his underlings are super chasing after Kuroko!” The Knock off was all beat up. “If you care for her even one bit, then help her!!”  
I sat frozen for an instant, trying to find some smartass reply to give or a valid excuse to make so I could salvage my reputation. In the end, the best I managed was to quickly get up on my feet and go run desperately to the brat.   
I slapped a hand against my face, wanting to rip it off. My eyes were on fire, my body trembling uncontrollably. I just didn’t get why I was so fucking pissed. How fucking dare she! Little shit getting in my way!! One thing was for sure, I had to cut all ties with her.


End file.
